National Geographic Announces ‘The Cancer Vaccine’ Documentary Special

Dessi Gomez
·2 min read

National Geographic has announced a documentary special with the working title of “The Cancer Vaccine.”

The documentary special will follow Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci – the husband-and-wife team who built German biotechnology giant BioNTech and created the Pfizer BioNTech COVID Vaccine — as they compete in the race to find a cure for cancer.

The film will chronicle Şahin and Türeci’s creation of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine, which came out of mRNA technology that, for years, had been considered useless. The couple has their own team, with whom they face competitors, skeptics, government officials and the disease itself. The solution may lie in using the body’s defenses to create medicine that can disarm the disease that has killed so many.

Early patient trials have yielded hopeful results, with half of those in BioNTech’s Phase 1 trial showing no sign of relapse after being treated for pancreatic cancer, which kills 88% of patients within three months of diagnosis.

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“The Cancer Vaccine will give viewers a front-row seat to one of the biggest events in history unfolding in real-time – the scientists racing to find a potential cure for cancer,” said Tom McDonald, executive vice president of Global Factual and Unscripted Content, National Geographic. “With unprecedented inside access, we are honored to be able to shine a light on the heroes – the scientists, patients and people, who are working to combat this disease that affects far too many of our friends, families and neighbors.”

Filmmaker Patrick Forbes (“The Phantom,” “Wikileaks: Secrets and Lies”) will direct the project from Oxford Films (“Hilary and Jackie,” “Restoration” “Diana, Our Mother”).

For Oxford Films, Nick Kent and Simon Finch are executive producers For National Geographic, Simon Raikes is commissioning editor and Tom McDonald is executive vice president, Global Factual and Unscripted Content.