The Bloomberg Billionaires Index put Uğur Şahin's net worth at $7.22 billion in February 2022. Most of it is his stake in BioNTech, which has been listed on Nasdaq as BNTX since October 2019.
BioNTech was founded in Mainz in 2008 by Şahin, Özlem Türeci and Christoph Huber, with a seed of about €150 million to €180 million from the Strüngmann brothers. Ganymed, the earlier company of the three, was sold to Astellas in 2016 for over €400 million.
In January 2020 the company began Project Lightspeed and shifted to a COVID vaccine with Pfizer. It announced 95% efficacy in November 2020, and its market value briefly passed $100 billion in August 2021.
Revenue has since fallen. BioNTech had revenue of €2.87 billion and a net loss of €1.14 billion for 2025, and it bought CureVac for about $1.25 billion in June 2025. Şahin and Türeci are due to leave by the end of 2026, so the 2022 figure is no guide to his current wealth.