The stock market rally driven by the promising results of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine trial increased the fortunes of many investors, but nothing compared to that recorded by brothers Andreas and Thomas Struengmann, from Germany.
Together, the twins increased their assets by $ 8 billion this year due to their participation in BioNTech, Pfizer’s partner in the development of the vaccine. BioNTech’s ADRs (securities that correspond to shares quoted in New York) appreciated last week after the US pharmaceutical company disclosed that the developing vaccine prevented 90% of symptomatic infections in tens of thousands of volunteers.
At $ 22 billion, the twins have one of the world’s largest health care fortunes, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The 70-year-old brothers formed their empire by reinvesting the profits from the family’s generic drug business.
They “reshaped their fortune simply by believing in science,” said Paul Westall, co-founder of Agreus, a firm that recruits consultants for family offices. The Struengmann brothers did not respond to requests for comment.
Athos Service
The brothers founded their “family office” Athos Service shortly after Novartis announced in 2005 the purchase of its pharmaceutical company Hexal, together with their stake in the affiliate EON Labs for a total of 5.7 billion euros.
Thomas Struengmann said in December in interview to the German newspaper Handelsblatt, which the brothers had initially promised themselves that they would not invest more than a billion euros in the biotechnology sector, because of the risks and the necessary patience. They ended up exceeding that limit after seeing promising signs.
“You want to see your plants continue to grow,” he said.
The twins’ bet on BioNTech sums up the ambition to finance transformational drugs. They helped provide BioNTech with € 150 million in seed capital in 2008 and now own about half of the company.
The rise in shares also propelled BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin’s fortune to more than $ 4 billion, according to the Bloomberg index, and now the executive is closer to joining the club of the 500 richest people in the world. world.
The Struengmanns also supported Ugur Sahin’s earlier bet on Ganymed Pharmaceuticals, a cancer treatment company that the Turkish-born scientist founded with his wife in Ozlem Tureci. A year after the couple turned their attention to covid-19, preliminary test results validate the new type of medication the pair spent their career trying to develop.
“It could pave the way in the pharmaceutical industry for a new type of molecule,” Sahin said in an interview.
“Great elephants”
After taking control of family pharmacist Durachemie in 1979, which belonged to their father Ernst, the twins sold the company seven years later and used the socket to create Hexal. A company set up with just over 20 workers in an apartment near Munich, which later grew to be the fourth largest manufacturer of generics in the world.
“Our strength is speed and flexibility,” said Thomas, who holds a doctorate in business management, during an interview in 2004. “While the big elephants are making their decisions, we have already taken action.”
BioNTech’s initial public offering (IPO) in the United States last year was the culmination of a busy decade for the twins.
Since 2010, they have invested with EQT AB in the Siemens hearing aid business, sold the German bank Suedwestbank for more than double the price they had paid in 2004, and bought stakes in a number of biotech companies, including Immatics NV, which recently carried out a merger with Arya Sciences Acquisition.
Not all bets have paid off.
The share price of Immatics NV has fallen by about a third since they were admitted to trading on the Nasdaq in July. 4SC AG, which develops cancer drugs and where twins are the largest shareholder, devalues more than 20% this year. BioNTech had an inauspicious debut on the stock exchange, with the shares being sold below the pre-defined range, but since then they have shot up 580%.
“The most important thing for us is not the return,” Thomas said in the Handelsblatt interview. It is “above all, about producing innovative and highly effective medicines”.
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