Business | More cash, stat!

After a covid-fuelled adrenaline rush, biotech is crashing

Many firms will not survive

TOPSHOT - A medic prepres a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against the coronavirus, to be used as a fourth shot, at the outpatient clinics of the cardiovascular centre at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, near the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv, on December 31, 2021. - Israel started giving fourth Covid vaccine shots today, to people with weakened immunity, becoming one of the first countries to do so, as cases surge driven by the Omicron variant. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

Aug 10th 2022

Three years ago no one had heard of BioNTech. Today the German biotechnology firm enjoys global renown, as well as annual revenues of $19bn. The company owes both the lustre and the lucre chiefly to the successful mrna covid-19 vaccine which it developed in partnership with Pfizer, an American drug giant. Yet even the effective jab has not immunised it from a downturn afflicting the biotech industry. On August 8th BioNTech reported that sales fell by 40% in the second quarter, year on year, as fewer people are left unjabbed and unboosted. Its share price tumbled by nearly 9%.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “More cash, stat!”