Why the Biontech success is a huge opportunity

"What Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci have achieved with Biontech is unique. But now the opportunity to develop a new life science cluster from it should be used vigorously.

 

Biontech's success in fighting the Covid pandemic will go down in history. What the entrepreneurial couple Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci have achieved in Mainz, Germany, and what they have created is unique: Last year, the Mainz-based company delivered 2.6 billion doses of vaccine, the net profit was more than ten billion euros.

 

Biontech is already a blessing for the city of Mainz, but also for the production site in Marburg, Hesse, and for the entire Rhine-Main region. In Mainz and Marburg, the city coffers swell thanks to the bubbling tax revenue and open up completely new design options for municipal politics, which now suddenly have a lot of money to put into climate protection, housing construction and education. Two years ago, no one would have believed that the company, which emerged from the University of Mainz, was capable of the dimensions into which Biontech has advanced.

 

But this undeniably fantastic success story is no reason to be in awe. Because the development of the company holds an opportunity of the century for the entire region, which should now be used vigorously. A company like Biontech, which will continue to grow at its headquarters in Mainz, is the beacon that business locations need to build high-performance clusters that include research institutions, universities and companies. They promise thousands of attractive jobs for well-trained specialists, subsidies and investments worth millions.

 

Other hopefuls in the industry are already settling around Biontech, who are looking for proximity to the flagship company. However, the region should not leave this development to market forces alone, but should do everything politically to use the tailwind for the traditional location, for example by defining attractive areas on which new businesses can grow.

 

The economy in the region will change. This is shown, for example, by looking at the digitization of the financial sector. It is all the more important to position oneself as broadly as possible and to focus on other future-oriented sectors. Especially since well-known pharmaceutical companies such as Sanofi, Merck and Boehringer are already at home in Rhein-Main or at least have large locations here. The opportunity to position Rhein-Main again as a "pharmacy of the world" that it once was is unique."

 

What about us in Lithuania? Oh, we will coscript everyone under the age of 60, like Ukraine, we will declare war on China and we will also get a bunch of money. Don't believe it? And have you heard about the success story of the New Vasiukij?