Twitter accounts purported to be those of Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, the founders of the German firm BioNTech, which raised hopes of a vaccine for the novel coronavirus last week are fake, BioNTech said on Monday.
It made the announcement through its own Twitter account.
The company said it had asked Twitter to delete all personal accounts linked to Sahin and Tureci, the married couple who are both on the executive board of the company.
BioNTech made global headlines with the announcement a week ago that together with its partner, U.S. giant Pfizer, it became the first pharmaceutical to develop a vaccine that was 90 per cent effective against the coronavirus.
The companies are reported to be ready to apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this month for emergency approval for their vaccine.
