>> sahin: i did not have doubts.g that concerned me is that we might be too late. >> whitaker: the married couple's company, biontech, is doing pioneering work on vaccines made with m.r.n.a., molecules in our cells that pass genetic instructions from our d.n.a. to particles that make proteins, the building blocks of life. >> sahin: we felt responsibility to start to develop a vaccine, because we knew the potency of our technology. >> whitaker: manipulating m.r.n.a. molecules in the lab to fight disease has been considered promising technology for more than 30 years, but it has never produced a proven vaccine. with the coronavirus spreading through europe, sahin and tureci redoubled their efforts. by february, biontech had produced 20 different versions of m.r.n.a. that triggered immune responses in mice and monkeys. sahin knew his small company would need help taking its research beyond the lab, so he picked up the phone and called his friend at pfizer, kathrin jansen. >> sahin: and she said, "ugur, why are you calli

professor sahin says that as soon as he read about what was happening in china, in wuhan, right at theat the beginning of the pandemic, he read about it in the lancet, and he says that straightaway, he took all the resources of biontech , which are relatively small pharma start up to put it right into creating a vaccine. now, of course, that this relatively small company has suddenly become world—renowned. and this couple, the german turkish couple who founded the company are now among the 100 richest people in germany. while the uk will be the first western country to roll out a vaccine, both china and russia have already been distributing their own vaccines before final trials have finished. and today vladimir putin ordered mass vaccinations in russia to begin next week — using sputnik vee vaccine. these are pictures of volunteers being given it after it was registered for use in august. today russia's health minister presented it to the un general assembly — ahead of who approval. the vaccine has received a certificate on the 11th of august. under emergency rules adopted during the

sahin says the rollout should be fast and vulnerable lives could be saved very quickly and by april,s his estimation, his and other vaccines will get america to 30% on the vaccine front, and he says that's when it will really start to make a difference in the broader population. the biontech founder says he's pleased with the rollout that we've been watching this week in the u.k. despite a few allergic reactions and he's confident, also, neil, this is brand new for us, that the pfizer biontech combination can meet the goals of 1.3 billion doses for next year and we heard from him for the first time it could exceed it considerably next year and that's important, too. the hitch though, neil, as we all know is getting enough people to take it with the vaccine skepticism. sahin assured us it was safe and warned even with all cooperation, countries and companies, it might take into the fall of next year to fully eradicate this virus. still, he's a very proud man. take a listen. >> you can, of course, imagine this is what you want to do because you love science, you love immunology, you lo

on tuesday, biontech ceo ugur sahin said he was confident the covid-19 vaccine would work on the newiant. >> we are going to evaluate that in a test. we will bld this into our system and evaluate if the immune response against our vaccine is able to -- we're confident this will be a cases in the past we have tested more mutations.es of positions multiple under the rus. amy: this comes as the united states recorded more than 200,000 new coronavirus cases and nearly 2000 covid-19 deaths on monday. u.s. hospitalizations hit another world record high -- topping 115,000 and 16 states corded a record number of new deaths. for more we're joined in charlottesville, virginia, by dr. taison bell. he is a critical care and infectious disease physician at the university of virginia who received the pfizer-biontech covid-19 vaccine earlier this month. dr. bell, welcome to democracy now! we are talking global, but let's correct the molecular and personal level, how did it feel to get this vaccine? what should people expect and why did you decide to be among the first to get this? dr. bell, can you

and the company's chief executive ugur sahin said if there were any problems, the nature of their vaccinemolecular epidemiologist at the university of bern. this new variant of the virus, do you think that the vaccines, the various vaccines, can cope with it? so, this is certainly the question of the hour. the thing to remember is the way that vaccines work is that they actually showed a spike protein to your body so that you can recognise it. it's like showing you a mug shot of a bad guy. just like if that bad guy then went around with sunglasses on, you will probably still recognise him. the idea is the same with the vaccine. just because the virus changes in a couple of places here and there, your body will still helpfully recognise the rest of it and mount a good response. so certainly, the hope is, the changes that occurred in his new variant will not be enough that your body still doesn't recognise the bad guy virus. we are worried about this new variant, because it's making the virus spread more rapidly, at least that is what we are told. why is it? what is it about the variant tha

sahin told our greg palkot, we'll start to see an impact when 30% of the u.s. has been innoculated and he believes by april. and the world could get control of the pandemic by the end of summer and he stressed that the vaccine has an excellent safety profile. leland. leland: mike tobin, kalamazoo. we'll see if we can get some video from inside the plant in the coming days. gillian. gillian: the buck stops with u.s. states busy finalizing their plans to distribute the first rounds of vaccines. let's bring in former utah governor mike leavitt and served as health and human services for president george w. bush. mr. governor, thanks so much for taking time with us. we really appreciate it. i want to hear from you first, your impression of the speed with which this vaccine has been essentially delivered to the united states. something like this, we're led to believe, often takes many years. in this stance we want from day zero to day 100, meaning vaccine distribution day which is probably going to be tomorrow in less than 11 months. >> as previously stated earlier

. >> hey, wilf, quadrupling this year, adding $4 billion to founderfoun er ugur sahin.he german twins have added 7.8 billion to their wealth. moderna, created three new billionaire this is year, including ceo stefan bencel, worth $5.3 billion tim springerwas an early invest investor, now worth $2 billion, saying he still bikes to work and plans to fund a new knot-for-profit for creating new antibodies m.i.t. bob langer, an early investor in moderna, now worth $1.5 billion today's doordash ipo creating three new billionaires, ceo tony xu, stanley tang all worth over $2 billion, highlighting this disconnect that, wilf, you mentioned with brian earlier between the capital economy and what's happening in the real economy. back to you. >> yeah. just gets more stark every day robert, thank you. robert frank >>> coming up on the show, campbell soup ceo mark clouse on whether the approval and rollout of coronavirus vaccines in the u.s. could hurt the company's sales. just off earnings today. >>> as we head to break, quick check on bonds for you yields higher across the board to

biontech of course partnering with pfizer, the founder sahin gaining $4 billion in wealth this year,rd richest person in the world. now, biontech's founding investors have done even better, the german twins have a he hadded added $7.8 billion to their wealth now, moderna, they created three new billionaires this year, the ceo is now worth over $4 billion, that is after cashing out 30 million in stock just over the past year now, harvard professor tim springer was an early investor and now worth over $2 billion. and then joe, you will like this one, m.i.t. professor bob langer is wofrt ov worth over 1.5 building. springer saying that he would fund a not for profit saying feel that i've had enough wealth for myself, i don't feel like i need more. by the way, their stock up 6%, so he gist gained the another $60 million. but think if you had stayed at m.i.t. and looked into rna, maybe you could be one of these guys, joe. >> oh, i was looking into it the lab next to me was phil sharp, won a nobel prize all kinds of guys like that. my professor started integrated genetics malcolm gefnr, th