BioNTech’s leadership outlined how the company built its platform and grew into global recognition long before its COVID-era breakthrough. Holger Kissel, SVP scientific relations & liaison at BioNTech, described starting in 2008 with €150 million from a family office and operating in stealth while developing mRNA technology and other platform efforts. Kissel cited a 2015 T-cell receptor partnership with Eli Lilly and a 2016 collaboration with Genentech/Roche, followed by a Series A funding round raising $270 million in 2018 and a $325 million Series B in 2019 before the company’s IPO in 2019. He emphasized that the business plan to become a fully integrated pharma company did not shift. For industry readers, the account reinforces how partnership-building and platform investment preceded scale—an execution model biotech companies often replicate when transitioning from platform science to a product-driven organization.