Marriage in sight for the two German messenger RNA pioneers

An employee holds up a bottle of an oncology product under development at the BioNTech research institute in Mainz, Germany, on October 5, 2022. ANDRE PAIN/AFP

They have long been in competition. The two German pioneers of messenger RNA, the technology made widely available in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic thanks to Covid vaccines, are preparing to tie the knot. Mainz-based BioNTech announced on Thursday, June 12, its intention to acquire its longtime rival, CureVac, based in Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, for approximately $1.25 billion (€1.08 billion).

These two specialists in messenger RNA therapies, who began developing this promising technology in the early 2000s, were brought to the forefront during the Covid-19 pandemic, as the world desperately sought to stem the spread of the virus. BioNTech, which had chosen to partner with the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer in the race for a vaccine, managed in just a few months to develop and market a product using messenger RNA, the first in the world to have obtained authorization from health authorities. The latter, of which several billion doses have since been sold, has made the fortune of the German biotech company, which still had, as of March 31, cash of close to 16 billion euros, despite declining results.

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