Pfizer and BioNTech in profile: The companies behind the Covid-19 vaccine

Pfizer was founded in New York in 1849 by German migrant chemist Charles Pfizer and his confectioner cousin Charles Erhart (Gareth Fuller/PA)

The partnership behind the breakthrough in finding a Covid-19 vaccine features a 171-year-old titan of the pharmaceutical industry and a biotechnology firm founded just 12 years ago.

And the histories of both American giant Pfizer and German company BioNTech started with the drive for treatments for another scourge of the times –  parasitical worms for the former, cancer for the latter.