BioNTech Annual General Meeting Successful with mRNA technology

Status: 22.06.2021 10:25 a.m.

At today’s Annual General Meeting, the BioNTech top management can boast great successes. This is not only due to the corona vaccine, in which the company has left many competitors behind.

From Bianca von der Au, ARD stock exchange studio

What happened to the Tübingen-based vaccine manufacturer CureVac is actually the norm in the biotech industry: one drug candidate disappoints. Research is tedious and devours billions. The rapid success of the competitor BioNTech was more than a stroke of luck, believes asset manager Hendrik Leber from the private corporation Acatis. The Mainz biotech company did a lot of things right, he says. “BioNTech made the decision very quickly to develop a vaccine at all. And the choice of partner to work with Pfizer was an extremely good decision.” The US pharmaceutical company opened the door to the American market and at the same time pushed ahead with marketing and clinical studies at a rapid pace.

Does CureVac’s chance lie in the mutants?

The Tübingen competitor CureVac is not only lagging in terms of time, but also in terms of time Effectiveness of his vaccine after. Experts are divided as to whether this deficit can be made up at all. Pharmaceutical specialist Alexander Nuyken from the consulting company EY gives the race is not lost for CureVac – in view of the constant number of new mutations and a low vaccination rate among the world’s population.

mRNA vaccine with great potential

However, the EY expert sees enormous potential in biotechnology, especially in the field, beyond the corona vaccine novel mRNA technology , which CureVac is also researching. “It was originally not developed with Covid in mind, but for completely different therapies, such as cancer”recalls Nuyken. There is the potential to address other diseases with this technology, namely, according to the expert, “cheaper, faster and more efficient.”

There is great hope – not only among investors – that mRNA technology can develop effective agents against previously incurable diseases – not only against cancer, but also against Alzheimer’s, for example. BioNTech has been researching a vaccine against cancer for a long time and, a few days ago, treated a skin cancer patient with an mRNA vaccine for the first time in a phase II study.

Would you like more willingness to take risks?

The path to the surprising success with the corona vaccine was only possible for BioNTech thanks to patient donors in the background. EY pharma expert Nuyken believes that there is a need for greater willingness to take risks in Germany. “How do we get the good science that we undoubtedly have in Germany in companies? And how can we then further develop these companies until they are ready for the market?”the expert asks.

He sees this as the biggest hurdle in the German environment. “In contrast to the American market, we have significantly less capital that is available for the development of these companies.” So it’s no wonder that CureVac and BioNTech have been listed on the Nasdaq technology exchange in the USA in the past two years. But also in Germany, Corona and the search for a vaccine have put the biotech industry in the (spotlight) light. According to EY, the German biotechnology company is in the Corona year 2020 so much capital flowed in as never before . In CureVac, the federal government even invested 300 million euros – a risky investment

Film industry “There’s never been more shooting going on”

Status: 06/18/2021 10:22 a.m.

The film industry is recovering from the forced Corona break. Due to the great pent-up demand, production is currently running at full speed. But the pandemic has consequences that will change the industry.

From Tina von Löhneysen, RBB

Backdrops on trolleys, trucks being unloaded, locked gates behind which secret stage sets are set up – in the Babelsberg studio there is a buzz. Christoph Fisser is a member of the board here and is in a good mood. In a polo shirt, he walks across the extensive grounds. “We are starting three major international productions these weeks, all of which are star-studded,” he says. You can hear the pride in his voice. “Not only here, it is shot everywhere like never before, because all films are being made up that were not made last year. They were all already financed.”

Make-up artists are hard to come by

The industry is booming. So much so that it is difficult to put crews together. Make-up artists and sound engineers are hard to come by because they are all already engaged in productions. Studio Babelsberg is a heavyweight in the industry. Founded more than a hundred years ago, films such as “The Blue Angel” or later “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “Grand Budapest Hotel” were shot here. It is considered the oldest film studio of its kind in the world. During Corona you only had to close for 16 weeks, two large-scale productions then continued filming in Potsdam. Although this was associated with a large logistical and financial effort – 60,000 tests were carried out for it, and now more meticulous testing is being carried out – but it has just continued.

The industry stood still

The industry as a whole was different. There was a standstill. It was hardly shot. The uncertainty was too great, the conditions too strict. Now there is far-reaching relaxation, the general sigh of relief and a lot of catching up to do, says Sebastian Lambeck from the producer alliance for film and television. But in perspective one will be able to observe a shift in production activity.

“Financing movies has become even more difficult due to the pandemic,” says Lambeck. Whether you get a film in the cinemas when it is finished, how well it is going: All this has become even more unpredictable due to the pandemic. And, quite clearly: The trend that was already emerging has accelerated enormously as a result of Corona: “The streaming providers are the winners of this crisis.” Babelsberg board member Fisser also notices this. The demand has more than tripled, which is due to the great hunger of streaming services for content. For Fisser’s company, that doesn’t really matter. When he shoots, it always makes money. But it hurts him a little. “We love cinema, you really have to say that. Personally, I much prefer to produce cinema films than serial, but the market has changed dramatically.”

“Films galore”

Despite all the changes: the good old cinema still exists. In these weeks, the movie theaters in Germany will open again, regionally staggered. “There are plenty of good films,” says Christian Bräuer, chairman of the AG Kino – Gilde eV

“In the next four months, about as many films will be shown in theaters as would normally be spread over an entire year,” he reports. Constantin Film AG, which is both a film distributor and a production company, confirms this. Like all distributors, they have an unusually large number of films on stockpile. That means for the cinema-goers: There is a huge selection of films. This is one of the reasons why the cinema operators are looking at the openings with great confidence. The hope: After the crisis there will be a boom – not only in film production, but also in watching films.

Besides, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also expressed optimism that the two sides will reach an agreement as soon as possible. US and EU express cooperation on protection issues for Boeing and Airbus In March, the EU and the US also agreed to suspend counter-tariff actions for four months over a dispute related to protections for Airbus and Boeing. The US accused the EU of protecting aircraft maker Airbus to create a competitive advantage, while the EU also accused the US of taking similar measures against Boeing. The related lawsuits have dragged on for the past 17 years but have not come to an end. The dispute has led Brussels and Washington to repeatedly launch tariffs to punish each other. In March 2018, former US President Donald Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imported steel products and 10% on aluminum imports from the EU, Canada and Mexico. In response, the EU approved a regulation to impose tariffs on $3.2 billion in US goods, including a 25% tax on the country’s whiskey. In addition to the issue of Airbus-Boeing, the two sides are currently arguing about France, Spain and some EU countries imposing digital taxes on major US technology firms.