Icon: enlarge
Curevac's
business
model
is based on his doctoral thesis: Founder
Ingmar Hoerr
.
Photo: SEBASTIAN BERGER FOR HARVARD BUSINESS MANAGER
Harvard Business manager: Mr. Hoerr, on March 10th last year you, co-founder and chairman of the board of Curevac, were reappointed as CEO. On March 12, you negotiated in the Federal Chancellery about the promotion of the vaccine you had developed against Covid-19. On the morning of March 13th, you suffered a severe cerebral haemorrhage in your hotel room in Berlin, which immediately knocked you unconscious. What do you remember from that time?
Ingmar Hoerr:
I don't remember the conversations in the Chancellery or other events in the days before my collapse.
Just as little about the weeks in an artificial coma after the emergency operation.
I was only saved because my assistant at the company's headquarters in Tübingen, with whom I was on the phone and texting on that fateful Friday the 13th, was irritated by the lack of my answer.
She alerted the reception of my hotel.
They reacted immediately, found me in my room and brought me to the Charité University Hospital by ambulance.
I was operated on immediately.
Without this combination of fortunate circumstances, I would not have survived, or at least I would no longer be myself.
A heavy blow. How did you fare after the operation?
Like many victims of a cerebral haemorrhage, I experienced delirium when I woke up from the artificial coma.
This usually only takes a few days, but I struggled with it for a few weeks.
I knew I was Ingmar Hoerr from Tübingen, founder of Curevac, but I couldn't explain where I was, for what reason and in what condition.
Once the afternoon television program above my bed was showing a car show from a private broadcaster.
What did that have to do with me, with my situation in someone else's bed?
Some nurses and nurses at the ward spoke Russian among themselves.
That made me fear that the Russian secret service had kidnapped me.
Which scared me very much.
Were you able to speak and understand when someone spoke to you in German? Did you recognize familiar faces?
I recognized my wife straight away.
That was a great relief.
At first I couldn't comment at all because of my tracheotomy.
In addition, I was tied to the bed, couldn't walk for two months and later only moved in a wheelchair at first.
I had to laboriously learn all of this again, as well as writing, swallowing and eating independently.
Fortunately, abstract knowledge from my research, my personal history and that of the company came back.
I was soon able to understand and reply to direct address, but also messages and messages.
The scientific facts and knowledge, the economic context of the company are obviously firmly anchored in me.
Only my short-term memory sometimes plays a trick on me.
What did you learn about yourself from this time of your illness?
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