The German biotechnology company BioNTech made more than 10 billion euros profit last year from selling vaccines against the coronavirus. Vaccination campaigns against the lung virus only got underway in 2021, making the net result almost 700 times higher than a year earlier.
BioNTech, together with the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer, developed the first approved corona vaccine that works with so-called mRNA technology. First, a piece of genetic code of a protein of the coronavirus is inoculated, after which the body is instructed to imitate this protein itself. The immune system with which it is trained to attack the coronavirus responds to this.
With the sale of some 2.6 billion vaccines, BioNTech achieved a turnover of 19 billion euros last year. This does not only concern the proceeds of the doses that the Germans sold themselves but also a part of the gross profit that partner Pfizer achieved from the vaccine sales in countries where the American group had the sales rights.
This year, BioNTech counts on a turnover of between 13 billion and 17 billion euros. To maintain the effectiveness of the vaccines, elderly people in the Netherlands, among others, need a second booster shot. The biotech company is also currently investigating a modified version of its corona vaccine that targets the much more contagious omikron variant.
Shareholders of BioNTech also benefit from the good results. The company proposes to repurchase its own shares for the equivalent of 1.3 billion euros, which makes the other pieces worth more. In addition, BioNTech wants to pay a special dividend of 2 euros per share, which amounts to a total amount of 486 million euros.
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