Pfizer initially turned down the offer of developing a coronavirus vaccine because the company's top executives thought the virus would be rapidly contained, like Sars and Mers.
Dr Ugur Sahin and his wife Dr Özlem Türeci, the founders of BioNTech, were told, "Guys, this is not going to work", by the pharmaceutical giant as the virus was starting to sweep the globe in January 2020.
The mRNA technology, which has proved so crucial to the vaccine breakthroughs, was, at the time, also considered too experimental by Pfizer's vice president and chief scientific officer for viral vaccines, Dr Phil Dormitzer.
"My working assumption was that it [Covid-19] would be controlled", Dr Dormitzer admitted.
The rejection, revealed in a new book, came just days after the Turkish-born couple decided to dedicate BionNTech to creating an mRNA-based Covid jab, effectively gambling their business on something that had never been done before. Their company is now capitalised at $119.4 billion. Yet Dr Sahin and Dr Türeci remain close to Pfizer - and to Dr Dormitzer, or "Phil" as they know him.
