Exclusive: BioNTech acquires lipid nanoparticle startup founded by George Mason and UPenn scientists

BioN­Tech, the Ger­man drug com­pa­ny fa­mous for de­vel­op­ing a Covid-19 vac­cine with Pfiz­er, has ac­quired Aex­eR­NA and its nov­el lipid nanopar­ti­cles for mR­NA med­i­cines, End­points News has learned.

Aex­eR­NA is a tiny start­up that large­ly ex­ists on pa­per. It has no lab or staff sci­en­tists, just a for­mer patent lawyer as its CEO and sev­er­al sci­en­tif­ic co-founders, in­clud­ing mR­NA pi­o­neer and re­cent No­bel Prize lau­re­ate Drew Weiss­man from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, and bio­engi­neer Michael Buschmann of George Ma­son Uni­ver­si­ty.

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