BioNTech Names Guido Oelkers CEO, Succeeding Co-Founder Ugur Sahin

BioNTech's Supervisory Board announced on Aug 3 that Guido Oelkers — CEO of Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (Sobi) since 2017, with three decades in biotech/pharma including prior CEO roles at BSN Medical and Gambro — will become Chief Executive Officer no later than Feb 1, 2027, succeeding co-founder Ugur Sahin. Sahin and fellow co-founder/Chief Medical Officer Özlem Türeci will step down by end of 2026 to launch a new, as-yet-unnamed mRNA startup. Oelkers said BioNTech "stands out through its scientific foundation and particularly its strong late-stage oncology pipeline," and framed his mandate as evolving BioNTech into "a global biopharmaceutical company with multiple approved products by 2030." The transition marks the end of the founder-led era at the company that produced BNT162b2, as BioNTech pivots from pandemic-era COVID vaccine dominance toward commercial oncology.