BioNTech SE (BioNTech) punched above its weight by winning the race for an approved COVID-19 vaccine. The biotech had to evolve in lightspeed from a (well-funded) start-up to a fully-integrated biotech company in less than a year. Without the pandemic BioNTech would have remained an ambitious start-up established in 2008. With ~€40bn of total vaccine-related sales (2021-23E) and net cash of ~€13.6bn at the 2022 year-end, the firm now looks completely different.