BioNTech wins the “Golden Tablet of General Practitioners, Practitioners and Internists (APIs) in Pharma Trend 2022, repeating its success from the previous year. The “APIs” as well as the paediatricians’ specialist group also give the company the award “The Most Innovative Product” for its COVID vaccine Comirnaty®. BioNTech thus places 6th in the inter-specialist “Best Pharmaceutical Companies in Germany” 2022 ranking in the category “research-based, world-leading pharmaceutical companies in terms of sales”.
In the Pharma Trend Study 2022, the general practitioners/practitioners/internists (APIs) once again award the Mainz-based biotechnology company BioNTech a “Golden Tablet”. 18% of the respondents voted for BioNTech, silver went to Pfizer with 16% of the votes, bronze to AstraZeneca with 14%. BioNTech’s success is due to its COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty®, for which the “King’s Class of APIs” as well as the paediatricians’ specialist group awarded the company “The Most Innovative Product”.
BioNTech: Pioneer for individualised immunotherapies
BioNTech SE (Biopharmaceutical New Technologies) is a biotechnology company based in Mainz that was founded in 2008 and has been listed on the stock exchange since the end of 2019. The messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based therapy platforms established by BioNTech serve as the basis for the development of individualised immunotherapies against cancer, infectious diseases and rare diseases. Immunotherapies against cancer should be tailored to the tumour of each individual patient.
Biontech has more than 200 patent families. In 2020, the first active vaccine against COVID-19 disease (BNT162b2/ COMIRNATY®) was developed and conditionally approved. More than 2.6 billion doses of the company’s first and only approved medicine were delivered in 2021. Sales of 18.87 billion euros were thus achieved in 2021, an increase of 303 million euros over the previous year. In August 2021, BioNTech’s stock market value amounted to more than 100 billion dollars.
However, the founding idea of the company, which is still pursued today, is the development of technologies for individualised cancer immunotherapy. In the field of oncology, the focus is on four drug classes: mRNA, next-generation antibodies, small molecule immunomodulators and programmable cell therapies (CAR-T cells). Of 30 product candidates, 20 are currently being tested in clinical trials*. The goal is to bring further products in the areas of infectious diseases and cancer medicine to approval in the next five years.
BioNTech’s research and development costs amounted to €949.2 million in 2021, compared to €645.0 million in the previous year. Sales and marketing costs amounted to 50.4 million euros in 2021, compared to 14.5 million euros in the previous year.
BioNTech employs more than 3,000 people from over 61 countries, 850 of whom work in research and development (expansion of 40%). The proportion of women is 51%, and 43% in top management. The company has a total of eleven research, development and production sites, seven of which are in Germany (Mainz, Idar-Oberstein, Berlin, Planegg-Martinsried, Neuried, Halle and Marburg) and one each in the USA, Singapore, the UK and Turkey. Subsidiaries have recently been established in Austria and China.
Comirnaty®: The most innovative product for general practitioners and paediatricians 2022
In Pharma Trend, BioNTech has been one of the most sustainable and innovative pharmaceutical companies in Germany since the beginning of the corona pandemic. The specialist group of general practitioners, practitioners and internists voted the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty® as the most innovative product in 2022 with 13% of the votes. In view of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the innovation aspect was the most important aspect for 63% of the general practitioners. For 92% of respondents, the vaccine met this criterion most fully. 77% emphasised the novelty on the market, 38% praised the good tolerability.
The specialist group of paediatricians also saw Comirnaty® as the most innovative product in 2022. Among them, 88% emphasised the novelty on the market, 82% the innovative mode of action.
Multiple awards for BioNTech for innovation and sustainability
BioNTech has received multiple awards for innovation and sustainability since the launch of its first and only approved product, Comirnaty®. In the pandemic year 2021, BioNTech representatives carried home four “Golden Tablets”: those of gastroenterologists, gynaecologists, paediatricians and general practitioners/internists (APIs). For the APIs, Comirnaty® was “The Most Innovative Product” in 2021 and 2022, and the paediatricians gave this award in 2022.
Awards for innovation and sustainability since 2000:
- The Golden Tablet (2022, 2021)
- Comirnaty® (2022, 2021)
