BioNTech, Moderna executives’ wealth gets a massive boost from Covid-19 vaccines, Hurun list shows
- BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin’s wealth jumps by the most to US$12 billion, making him the world’s 14th wealthiest health industry billionaire
- China had the most billionaires on the Hurun Global Healthcare Rich List at 34
BioNTech and Moderna executives and investors reaped the rewards of their highly effective coronavirus vaccines, posting the largest wealth gains in the healthcare industry, while China had the most number of billionaires, according to the Hurun Global Healthcare Rich List released on Thursday.
Ugur Sahin, the 56-year-old CEO of BioNTech, saw his net worth jump by 155 per cent, a gain of US$7.3 billion, making him the world’s 14th wealthiest health industry billionaire. The German was tied with American Steven Rales of Danaher, which is known for developing diagnostic tools. Sahin and Rales were estimated to be worth US$12 billion each.
BioNTech investors Andreas Strungmann and Thomas Strungmann also saw their wealth increase by half to US$15 billion each, putting the German duo seventh on the list, along with China’s Chen Bang of Aier Ophthalmology and Italy’s Massimiliana Landini Aleottie and her family, who own the Menarini pharmaceutical company.
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Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel gained US$4.9 billion, more than doubling his wealth to US$9.4 billion. Ranked 23rd on the list, Bancel tied with China’s Li Ge and Zhao Ning of Wuxi Pharma Tech and Switzerland’s Frederik Paulsen of Ferring Pharmaceuticals.
Vaccines made by BioNTech and Moderna are arguably the world’s two most successful and widely-used against the coronavirus pandemic that has wrought havoc on the global economy since it spread two years ago. In Hong Kong, the BioNTech vaccine is one of the options available to residents.
In May last year, the largest real world study confirmed that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines provided more than 95 per cent protection against Covid-19. Moderna had about the same effectiveness. Their booster shots have also been preferred by many governments to fight the more transmissible Omicron variant. As of today, 11.2 billion shots of these vaccines have been administered globally, according to the latest data from Bloomberg.
The number of shots is likely to keep growing as annual boosters of the vaccines are administered to fight the coronavirus and its mutant strains.