BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin to get Ehrlich Prize

The biochemist Katalin Kariko (66), the physician Ozlem Tureci (54), and the BioNTech CEO, physician Ugur Sahin (56), are the recipients of the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize 2022, Report informs referring to the Goethe Universitat’s website.

Today, this was announced by the Scientific Council of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation. The three award winners are being honored for their achievements in the development of messenger RNA (mRNA) for preventive and therapeutic purposes.

Katalin Kariko, Ozlem Tureci, and Ugur Sahin have established a technology platform that is likely to initiate a paradigm shift in some areas of medicine - away from the external application of immunizing antigens or therapeutically effective proteins to their internal production within the cells of patients. The spectacularly rapid development of a highly effective vaccine against the coronavirus disease COVID-19, which has proven to play a decisive role in the worldwide containment of the SARS-CoV2 pandemic, has been an outstanding success.

During the last years, BioNTech has made significant progress in the clinical application of cancer vaccines.

The prizes will be awarded - together with the prizes of the year 2021 - on March 14, 2022, at 5 p.m. CET by the Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt.

The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize is an annual award bestowed by the Paul Ehrlich Foundation since 1952 for investigations in medicine. It carries prize money of EUR 120,000. Researchers from worldwide are awarded in the following fields of medicine: Immunology, Cancer research, Hematology, Microbiology, and experimental and clinical Chemotherapy.

It is one of the highest endowed and internationally most distinguished awards in medicine in Germany.