BioNTech vs Moderna: Founders, CEOs and History
BioNTech was founded in 2008 by Prof. Ugur Sahin, M.D., Prof. Ozlem Tureci, M.D., Dr. Christoph Huber and is led by Uğur Şahin. Moderna was founded in 2010 by Derrick Rossi, Robert Langer, Noubar Afeyan and is led by Stéphane Bancel.
Company facts
Founders
BioNTech
Prof. Ugur Sahin, M.D.
Ugur Sahin co-founded BioNTech in 2008 and has been its chief executive since. Born in Iskenderun, Turkey, he moved to Germany as a child, grew up in Cologne and studied medicine at the University of Cologne.
Prof. Ozlem Tureci, M.D.
Özlem Türeci is a co-founder of BioNTech and its Chief Medical Officer. A physician and immunologist born in Germany to a Turkish family, she trained at Saarland University, where she met Ugur Sahin; they married in 2002.
Dr. Christoph Huber
Christoph Huber is an Austrian hematologist-oncologist and co-founder of BioNTech. As head of hematology and oncology at the University of Mainz he mentored Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, and he co-founded Ganymed Pharmaceuticals with them in 2001.
Moderna
Derrick Rossi
Rossi's discovery gave Moderna its name, from 'modified RNA'. He served on the company's early scientific advisory board but did not run it; Stéphane Bancel was recruited as CEO in 2011.
Robert Langer
Robert Langer has served on Moderna's board of directors since its founding and has been instrumental in guiding the company's scientific strategy and partnerships.
Noubar Afeyan
Noubar Afeyan has served as Moderna's chairman since its founding and has been the architect of the company's strategic vision and capital structure.
Kenneth Chien
Chien's work on modified mRNA encoding VEGF-A for heart repair underpinned Moderna's early cardiovascular collaboration with AstraZeneca. He later moved to the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and stepped back from day-to-day involvement.
CEOs and their tenures
BioNTech
- Uğur Şahin2008–present
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
Sahin has led BioNTech since its 2008 founding, took it public on Nasdaq in 2019 and directed Project Lightspeed in 2020, which produced Comirnaty with Pfizer.
Source - Özlem Türeci2008–present
Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder
Türeci has run BioNTech's clinical development since 2008, from early mRNA cancer vaccine trials to Comirnaty and the late-stage oncology portfolio. She leaves with Sahin by the end of 2026.
Source - Sean Marett2012–2024
Chief Business and Commercial Officer
Marett joined BioNTech's management in 2012 and helped negotiate its pharma partnerships, including the 2020 Pfizer collaboration on the COVID-19 vaccine.
Source - Ramón Zapata-Gomez2025–present
Chief Financial Officer
Joined from Novartis, where he was CFO of its biomedical research unit, and became CFO on July 1, 2025, succeeding Jens Holstein. He oversaw the 2026 guidance revision and the $1.0 billion ADS buyback launched in May 2026.
Source - Guido Oelkers2027–present
Incoming Chief Executive Officer (takes office by February 1, 2027)
Appointed by the Supervisory Board on August 3, 2026 to succeed Ugur Sahin. Oelkers has more than 30 years in pharma and biotech and has been CEO of Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (Sobi) since 2017.
Source
Moderna
- Noubar Afeyan2010–present
Co-Founder & Chairman
Provided the foundational venture capital and scientific direction through Flagship Pioneering to invent the mRNA therapeutic delivery platform.
Source - Stéphane Bancel2011–present
Chief Executive Officer (first CEO)
Bancel has led Moderna from a pre-revenue startup to a $180 billion market cap at its peak, overseeing the development of Spikevax in record time and the company's transition to a multi-product biotechnology enterprise.
Source - Stephen Hoge2012–present
President
Physician and former McKinsey partner who joined in 2012 and oversees research and development, including the respiratory and oncology programs.
Source - Jamey Mock2022–present
Chief Financial Officer
Former PerkinElmer CFO who has led Moderna's post-pandemic cost reductions and cash guidance.
Source
Timeline: BioNTech and Moderna side by side
2005Moderna
Karikó and Weissman Publish Modified mRNA Research
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman at the University of Pennsylvania publish foundational research demonstrating that modified nucleosides in mRNA can evade the body's inflammatory response, solving the key obstacle preventing mRNA therapeutics from clinical app…
2008BioNTech
BioNTech founded in Mainz
Ugur Sahin, Özlem Türeci and Christoph Huber founded BioNTech in Mainz to develop individualized cancer immunotherapies.
2010Moderna
Moderna Therapeutics Founded in Cambridge
Derrick Rossi, Robert Langer, Noubar Afeyan, Kenneth Chien, and Timothy Springer found Moderna Therapeutics in September 2010, with Flagship Pioneering providing seed funding and incubation.
2011Moderna
Stéphane Bancel Appointed Founding CEO
Stéphane Bancel, former CEO of bioMérieux and executive at Eli Lilly, joins Moderna as founding CEO, bringing pharmaceutical commercial experience to the scientific founding team.
2012Moderna
Moderna Emerges from Stealth with $40M Series A
Moderna emerges from two years of stealth operation with a $40 million Series A financing, revealing its mRNA platform technology to the public for the first time.
2013BioNTech
Katalin Karikó joins as senior vice president
Biochemist Katalin Karikó, whose work on nucleoside-modified mRNA reduced unwanted immune reactions to synthetic RNA, joined BioNTech. She shared the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Drew Weissman for that research.
2013Moderna
AstraZeneca mRNA Collaboration
Moderna signs a collaboration with AstraZeneca in March 2013 including a $240 million upfront payment to discover and develop mRNA therapeutics for cardiovascular, metabolic, renal and cancer targets, before any Moderna drug had been tested in humans.
2016Moderna
Merck Partnership for Personalized Cancer Vaccines
Moderna and Merck agree in 2016 to co-develop personalized mRNA cancer vaccines combined with Keytruda, the collaboration behind mRNA-4157 (later named intismeran autogene).
2018Moderna
Moderna Completes $604 Million IPO
Moderna lists on Nasdaq in December 2018, raising about $604 million at a valuation of roughly $7.5 billion, one of the largest biotech IPOs at the time.
2019BioNTech
Nasdaq IPO under ticker BNTX
BioNTech listed American Depositary Shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market in October 2019, pricing at $15 per ADS and raising $150 million, about three months before the first reports of the novel coronavirus.
2020BioNTech
Project Lightspeed and the Pfizer partnership
In late January 2020 Ugur Sahin redirected BioNTech's mRNA platform to a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine under Project Lightspeed. In March 2020 BioNTech agreed to co-develop the vaccine with Pfizer, which brought global trial, manufacturing and distribution capacity.
2020BioNTech
First authorized mRNA medicine
On December 2, 2020 the UK regulator authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (BNT162b2, later branded Comirnaty), the first mRNA medicine cleared for use anywhere. The U.S.
2020Moderna
COVID-19 Vaccine Development in Record Time
Moderna selects mRNA-1273 as its COVID-19 vaccine candidate on January 13, 2020, just two days after the SARS-CoV-2 sequence was published.
2021BioNTech
Peak year: ~$21.4 billion (€18.98 billion) revenue
Comirnaty sales lifted BioNTech's FY2021 revenue to ~$21.4 billion (€18.98 billion) and net profit to ~$11.6 billion (€10.29 billion), compared with ~$545 million (€482.3 million) of revenue a year earlier.
2021Moderna
COVID-19 Vaccine Revenue Reaches $18.5 Billion
Moderna reports 2021 revenue of $18.5 billion and net income of $12.2 billion, almost entirely from its COVID-19 vaccine, its first year of profitability.
2022Moderna
Revenue Peaks at $19.3 Billion
Moderna reports 2022 revenue of $19.3 billion and net income of $8.4 billion, the high point of pandemic sales, as Spikevax is approved and sold under commercial contracts.
2023BioNTech
Revenue falls to ~$4.32 billion (€3.82 billion); InstaDeep acquired
As COVID-19 vaccination became seasonal, FY2023 revenue fell 77.9% to ~$4.32 billion (€3.82 billion), though BioNTech stayed profitable with ~$1.05 billion (€930.3 million) of net income.
2023Moderna
Revenue Falls to $6.8 Billion
Revenue drops to $6.8 billion in 2023 as COVID vaccination turns seasonal, and Moderna posts a $4.7 billion net loss including write-downs tied to excess manufacturing commitments.
2024BioNTech
First full-year loss since the pandemic
FY2024 revenue fell to ~$3.11 billion (€2.75 billion) and BioNTech posted a ~$752 million (€665.3 million) net loss as R&D spending of ~$2.54 billion (€2.25 billion) went mostly to oncology.
2024Moderna
mRESVIA Approved for RSV Prevention
The FDA approves mRESVIA (mRNA-1345) in May 2024 for RSV prevention in adults 60 and older, Moderna's first non-COVID product.
2025BioNTech
Bristol Myers Squibb partnership on pumitamig
In June 2025 Bristol Myers Squibb agreed to co-develop and co-commercialize pumitamig, paying $1.5 billion upfront plus $2 billion in non-contingent anniversary payments through 2028, with up to $7.6 billion more in milestones.
2025BioNTech
CureVac patent settlement and acquisition
In August 2025 BioNTech and Pfizer settled U.S. mRNA patent litigation with CureVac and GSK for an aggregate $740 million plus single-digit royalties on U.S. COVID-19 vaccine sales.
2025Moderna
Revenue Falls to $1.9 Billion as Costs Are Cut
Moderna reports 2025 revenue of $1.94 billion and a $2.82 billion net loss, while cutting operating expenses by about $2.2 billion.
2025Moderna
CMV Vaccine Fails Phase 3 Primary Endpoint
Moderna says in October 2025 that its cytomegalovirus vaccine mRNA-1647 failed its Phase 3 primary endpoint and discontinues the congenital CMV program.
2026BioNTech
Founders announce departure; Guido Oelkers named CEO
On March 10, 2026 BioNTech said Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci would leave by the end of 2026 to lead a new company focused on next-generation mRNA.
2026BioNTech
Pandemic-era plants to close
On September 28, 2026 BioNTech said it would close its Tübingen, Marburg and Idar-Oberstein sites in Germany and a site in Singapore after failing to find buyers, affecting up to 1,860 jobs and handing all COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing to Pfizer.
2026Moderna
FDA Approves mFLUSIVA, First mRNA Flu Vaccine
After an initial FDA refusal-to-file letter early in 2026 was resolved, the FDA approves mFLUSIVA (mRNA-1010) on August 5, 2026 for adults 50 and older, full approval for ages 50-64 and accelerated approval for 65 and older.
2026Moderna
Intismeran Autogene Meets Phase 3 Melanoma Endpoint
On August 19, 2026 Merck and Moderna report that intismeran autogene plus Keytruda met the primary endpoint of recurrence-free survival and the key secondary endpoint of distant metastasis-free survival in the Phase 3 INTerpath-001 trial in resected stage IIB-…
Acquisitions
BioNTech
- CureVac N.V.2025$1.3B
- Biotheus Inc.2025$800M
- InstaDeep Ltd.2023Undisclosed
- Kite Pharma solid-tumor TCR platform and Gaithersburg facility2021Undisclosed
- Novartis manufacturing site in Marburg2020Undisclosed
- Neon Therapeutics2020$67M
Questions about BioNTech vs Moderna
Who is the CEO of BioNTech SE and Moderna, Inc.?
BioNTech SE is led by Uğur Şahin and Moderna, Inc. is led by Stéphane Bancel. Both serve as the top executive responsible for the company's strategy, operations, and financial performance.
When was BioNTech SE founded vs Moderna, Inc.?
BioNTech SE was founded in 2008 — 2 years before Moderna, Inc., which was founded in 2010. BioNTech SE's longer operating history gives it a deeper track record but also potentially more institutional inertia compared to the younger Moderna, Inc..
How many employees does BioNTech SE have compared to Moderna, Inc.?
BioNTech SE employs approximately 7,807 people, while Moderna, Inc. employs approximately 4,700. BioNTech SE has the larger workforce at 7,807 employees, compared to Moderna, Inc.'s 4,700. A higher headcount does not necessarily imply greater efficiency — it often reflects differences in business model (e.g., manufacturing vs. software).
Where are BioNTech SE and Moderna, Inc. headquartered?
BioNTech SE is headquartered in Germany and Moderna, Inc. is headquartered in United States. Their different home markets mean they may face different regulatory frameworks, tax regimes, and currency exposure.
Who founded BioNTech SE and Moderna, Inc.?
BioNTech SE was founded by Prof. Ugur Sahin, M.D., Prof. Ozlem Tureci, M.D., Dr. Christoph Huber. Moderna, Inc. was founded by Derrick Rossi, Robert Langer, Noubar Afeyan, Kenneth Chien.
Which company has a longer operating history — BioNTech SE or Moderna, Inc.?
BioNTech SE has been operating for approximately 18 years, making it the more established of the two companies. Moderna, Inc. has been in operation for around 16 years. A longer operating history often signals greater institutional resilience and brand recognition, though it can also mean slower adaptation to new market conditions.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the BioNTech vs Moderna overview