Why Shares of BioNTech Rose 216% in 2021

About two years ago, after reading an article about a mysterious respiratory virus that had been discovered in Wuhan, China, BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX) CEO Uğur Şahin felt his company was one of the few that could rapidly develop an effective vaccine for what he feared would become a pandemic-level contagion. His accurate intuition led to a 140% gain for shares in 2020 as that vaccine -- now called Comirnaty -- was created and tested with the help of its much larger partner, Pfizer (NYSE: PFE). That vaccine's successful rollout propelled BioNTech stock to a further 216% increase overall in 2021, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

And that incredible rise is less than half of the year-to-date gain it was sitting on back in August.