The rise in the stock market after the news that Pfizer’s experimental vaccine was over 90% effective has caused the assets of many investors to skyrocket.

In total, the two have earned an additional $8 billion this year thanks to their ownership of shares in BioNTech – the German company that jointly developed the Covid-19 vaccine with Pfizer.

Currently, with $22 billion – these twin brothers own one of the world’s largest assets in the health care industry, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Brothers Andreas and Thomas Struengmann.

In 1979, the brothers took over the family pharmaceutical company Durachemie from their father Ernst.

`Our strength lies in our speed and flexibility,` Thomas said in a 2004 interview. `While the big companies were still thinking, we were already acting.`

In 2005, the brothers opened an office called Athos Service shortly after Novartis announced it would acquire Hexal and its shares in EON Labs for a total of 5.7 billion euros ($6.7 billion).

In an interview last year with Handelsblatt newspaper, Thomas Struengmann said that initially, the brothers promised themselves not to invest more than 1 billion euros in biotechnology, because this industry is risky and requires patience.

The bet on BioNTech shows its ambitions for breakthrough drugs.

The Struengmann brothers also support Sahin’s former company – Ganymed Pharmaceuticals.

Last year, BioNTech’s IPO in the US ended a busy decade for the Struengmann brothers.

Of course, not all have good results.

`For us, profit is not everything,` Thomas said in an interview on Handelsblatt, `The number one priority is creating medical breakthroughs.`