BioNTech reported a disappointing quarter, moving from a €259.5 million profit a year ago to a net loss of €305 million. The company posted a per-share loss of €1.25 on revenue of €907.4 million, which was much worse than analysts’ forecasts of a €0.45 loss on €768.3 million in revenue.
The company’s outlook added to the disappointment. Management expects full-year 2026 revenue between €2 billion and €2.3 billion, which is well below the roughly €2.75 billion analysts had predicted. This gap suggests there are ongoing challenges, not just a one-time setback.
Shares dropped about 17% in premarket trading, putting the stock on track for its biggest one-day decline in over four years.
The worsening financial situation comes as the company faces a major leadership change. The co-founders, who are also the chief executive and chief medical officer and started BioNTech in 2008, announced they will leave by the end of the year to start a new biotech company. The supervisory board has begun looking for their replacements. BioNTech plans to give some rights and mRNA technologies to the new company in return for a minority stake, milestone payments, and royalties.
The leadership changes make an already tough situation even harder. Revenue from BioNTech’s main product, developed in partnership, has been declining since the peak of the pandemic. Management expects this decline to continue in both Europe and the U.S. through 2026. Meanwhile, a separate cancer partnership is expected to bring in about the same revenue as last year. In the United States, where mRNA technology — the foundation of BioNTech’s vaccine and cancer immunotherapy pipeline — has come under heightened scrutiny following a change in federal health leadership. The current administration has adopted a skeptical posture toward mRNA-based therapeutics, creating uncertainty around the regulatory pathway for next-generation products.
Prior to Tuesday’s selloff, BioNTech’s U.S.-listed shares had only made small gains in 2026, falling far behind the strong recoveries seen at other vaccine makers.
