BionTech needs to hire a top tier marketing and PR team immediately, they are failing bad at early media mentions, press releases and coverage. Unfortunately it's probably not within their DNA and they may not realize what is happening around them.
This is a monster, monster opportunity and just 'existing' won't leverage it to the extent they can - it will help them fund, hire more, expand more, do more of what they are doing.
So that they will turn into a mega company with nothing but PR, capital and marketing? I think the fact that they are so focused on medicine and science should rather be the norm in medicine.
The fact that Pfizer can spin this story on their name is disturbing and dangeruous behaviour that should not be the norm.
This is a misunderstanding of what communications is.
The world works on information, if you don't take a seat at table, it will be taken by someone else.
The notion that 'communicating' and 'lab work' would be somehow 'competing time and/or resource pressures' overall at the company is nonsense. They are mostly separate activities.
Pfizer doesn't have to 'spin' anything, they are a legit partner in the deal, they can do the release in the US, they will have their brand up there, their name, do the interviews - and they don't have to do anything tricky, they can surely mention their 'no name partner' and win $1 Billion worth of free PR.
A tiny Germany company, knowing nothing about communications, will miss the opportunity to tell the world who they are, to tell their story, to make their name known to another generation of researchers and scientists who might want to work with them, to a generation of bankers, business people who will be 2x more likely to want to 'take the call and or do the deal' because of their reputation.
1/2 of business is communicating, the only successful businesses that don't understand this are the one's that hit on it accidentally.
Pfizer is already a global brand, this is the moment of a lifetime for 'the name of the company I already forget' (see what I mean?) - I had to re-look it up - 'BioNTech' - it's very much make-or-break. If this vaccine is legit they need to start talking about themselves now.
Most German companies work like this, they even have their own moniker: "hidden champions". It appears to work just fine, if you're not selling to the public, what's the point of wasting money making the public aware of you? Also, not every company needs to be a Silicon-Valley-style startup which spouts endless PR nonsense about how their stupid internet-connected coffee machine is going to "change the world".
Your cynicism is misplaced (and borderline arrogant).
1) Germany is ~1% of the world's population, and an economy shrinking in size relative to the 'rest of world' quickly, a 'hidden champion' in Germany is almost irrelevant outside it's borders.
The world is a very big place, name recognition matters even within industry settings.
2) BioNTech has been losing money for a few years, they need this deal and everything from it. The CEO has a responsibility to make sure every element of credit is given where it's due.
3) The commenter below mentioned they are 'not small' - this is not quite true - they are 1000 people, which is actually relatively small for such a firm, their massive $20-25B valuation likely comes from kind of earlier understanding that they had a vaccine that was probably working, and such info was slowly leaked out to market over time. The the founder is 'Stock Rich' to the point of '100th Richest German' is really not a big deal.
There going to have to get out there and try to be as well known as some of the bigger brands.
Edit: I should point out that both Space X and Tesla would absolutely not exist were it not for the kind of communications strategy that Musk has embarked upon. Literally his appearance on Stephen Colbert was not only a plea for cash, but a plea for people to 'join the movement'. These things pervade just consumer elements and helps give him power and attention within other, non-consumer facing business operations such as the closed world of 'space'. Having made himself a very famous person enables him to open quite a lot of doors, get a lot of meetings, raise a lot of money, hire a lot of inspired people, which creates a virtuous circle unto it's own once products are materially released etc.. He did a great job of that.
Lookup what "hidden champion" actually means, such companies are highly competitive and successful in the global market with extremely specialized high-tech products in a small niche. Because they have specialized in high-quality niche-products they can focus their marketing money where it matters: their potential customers. And those customers are other companies, not people like you or me. Those companies are also often family-owned and not publicly traded. What's the point of maintaining a big PR circus for this type of company?
Did you read the same article as me? The company started 2020 with slightly less than $5B capitalization. The owners are already top-100 wealthiest in Germany due to an earlier startup working a similar space.
As another poster mentioned [0], they also have US offices and advanced manufacturing capabilities.
Seems to me that they have all the PR they need: it was enough to convince Pfizer to partner with them on something unknown and invest a ton of money into taking their idea from a lab to mass production in just a few months. If they had tried this along it would have been years before this vaccine was ready (if it ever got ready - odds are someone else would have something working first, or they go bankrupt getting the paperwork together)
What would they get from that? Even more market capitalization? Unlikely, they are getting plenty as is. The second tier visibility might even help their stock price a little as some particularly uninformed speculants might still fall victim to the illusion that they know more than their peers when buying shares of "the secret behind the Pfizer vaccine".
They would get the ability to open a lot of doors all over the world for financing, distribution, R&D opportunities - a major increase in power.
Every serious investor is a human being - when the become more aware of an issue or person, it becomes more material to them.
The Saudi sovereign wealth assets probably are somewhere near a Trillion dollars, that's a ton of money they need to invest, same for Norway. When they see this on TV, and BioNTech wants to do a $3 Billion raise next year for expansion, then the CEO, already known to the bankers, will be a powerful figure to have on the roadshow. Brand matters far beyond just consumer appeal and marketing.
This is a monster, monster opportunity and just 'existing' won't leverage it to the extent they can - it will help them fund, hire more, expand more, do more of what they are doing.