Uğur Şahin
Person
Key facts about this entity
Entity type: Person
Schema.org type: Person
Country: Germany
Current role: Co-founder and CEO of BioNTech SE; Full Professor of Experimental Oncology and Immunotherapy at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Known for: Co-founder of BioNTech SE and Ganymed Pharmaceuticals; architect of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine BNT162b2 / Comirnaty
Sector: Biotechnology, mRNA therapeutics, oncology, immunotherapy
Associated organization: BioNTech SE; Ganymed Pharmaceuticals; Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz; Pfizer (commercialisation partner)
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U%C4%9Fur_%C5%9Eahin
Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1150668
Entity Profile
Overview
Uğur Şahin is a German physician-oncologist and biotech entrepreneur. He is a co-founder and CEO of BioNTech SE and holds the chair as Full Professor of Experimental Oncology and Immunotherapy at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
Why this entity matters
Şahin is one of the most consequential European life-sciences founders of the past decade. As chief architect of BioNTech's mRNA platform and, through Project Lightspeed, of the COVID-19 vaccine BNT162b2 / Comirnaty, he sits at the centre of the DACH biotech story and of the wider debate about European industrial capacity in advanced therapeutics.
Career, company or institutional background
He co-founded Ganymed Pharmaceuticals in 2001 in Mainz with Özlem Türeci and Christoph Huber. Ganymed was sold to Astellas Pharma in 2016 for up to €1.28B, and its lead asset IMAB362 was subsequently approved as VYLOY (zolbetuximab) in Japan, the European Union and the United States in 2024 for CLDN18.2-positive gastric and gastro-oesophageal-junction cancer. In 2008 he co-founded BioNTech SE in Mainz with Türeci and Huber, with Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann as anchor investors via the AT Impf 100 Beteiligungs GmbH vehicle. He is the chief architect of BioNTech's mRNA oncology platform and, through Project Lightspeed, of the COVID-19 vaccine BNT162b2 / Comirnaty, commercialised globally with Pfizer.
Role in the startup, technology, investment or innovation ecosystem
He is a co-recipient of the 2021 German Future Prize (Deutscher Zukunftspreis) with Türeci and Huber and of the 2025 Deutscher Nationalpreis with Türeci. Forbes reported his net worth at approximately USD 4.3B in April 2026.
Selected relationships and affiliations
BioNTech SE (co-founder, CEO); Ganymed Pharmaceuticals (co-founder); Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (professorship); Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann and AT Impf 100 Beteiligungs GmbH (anchor investors at founding); Pfizer (COVID-19 vaccine commercialisation partner).
Startuprad.io relevance
Şahin is a persistent reference in Startuprad.io's coverage of DACH biotech, of German life-sciences venture financing, and of the Mainz biotech cluster's role in European advanced-therapeutics capacity.
Public source context
Public references include his Wikipedia entry and Wikidata identifier.