All right. Should be fun. If it's not, walk out at any moment. It's your building.
Albert Bourla, welcome to the CEO moment. As the leader of Pfizer, you have been witness and actor to some of the most interesting chapters for health, leadership, and innovation during the last decade. Thank you for having us here at Pfizer's new headquarters in New York City.
Thank you, first of all, it's a great honor to be part of this series and thank you for coming here.
Before we get into today's news, I'd like to start with where you started. Your family survived the near total destruction of one of the oldest Sephardic communities in the world, wiped out in the Holocaust. What's the story your parents told you about how they survived and how old were you when you first heard it?
I grew up, as you said, in a family that were Holocaust survivors. We lost most of the members of the family as an entire community, but there were few relatives that survived together with my mom and dad. And they were all coming together every Sunday in Greece, and all the cousins would be sitting around and they would speak about what happened to them during the Holocaust. It's very unusual. Usually Holocaust survivors never spoke about the pain.
It's the personalities, I think, of the individuals that made them. And to be frank, my father he would share very few details, but my mom and her brother that came back from Auschwitz, they would share a lot of details about what happened. So, we knew everything. The interesting thing in my case is that my parents never spoke to me about the horror that they lived, trying to instill on me hate or a sense of revenge or even a sense of fear. Be careful. It was always a celebration of life.
Does that surprise you now?
It, I think, saved my personality. The fact that through this terrible experience my mom could say that the line was, 'Life is miraculous,' saved my entire personality. And I grew up learning to find opportunities and good in even the most challenging situation.
And speaking of your personality, I'm curious to hear you speak a little bit more about how that history shaped how you make decisions today at Pfizer.
I don't know if it is only that. It is a series of things that is making you who you are, and who you are is making you make the decisions that you make. But clearly I would say a level of optimism that my mom instilled on me is very obvious in my leadership style. I always see the glass half full. When we have a challenge, many colleagues of mine will see what can go wrong and then maybe what opportunity we can open. I always start with, 'Wow, that's an opportunity that is opening,' and then I try to find out also what can go wrong.
So coming out of that experience, that horrible experience, you take with you optimism.
Another piece of your life story is you trained as a veterinarian. I'm curious, that's not a usual background for a pharma executive, I don't think. I'm curious how that shapes your thinking here today.
You're right. I became a veterinarian and I joined Pfizer because I was a veterinarian. Pfizer had an animal health group at that time. So, I joined Pfizer in my country, Greece, as a vet operations director. The pivot was when after 15 years with the animal health, I moved into the pharma division, and that of course was one of the most important moments in my life. The years in animal health were extremely successful for me and taught me things that other colleagues in pharma didn't know.
We were a very small division. We were 5% of Pfizer. And we had to fight for every single resource we could get. We had to be scrappy. We had to be very customer focused rather than product focused. What I discovered was the main culture in pharma when I joined. I was surprised how many resources we were having when we were dealing with a project in pharma, and I was surprised how long it takes, because when you have a lot of resources, you have many cooks in the kitchen.
More resources means it takes more time.
More resources, more time. It's a myth that more resources brings the timelines to shorter.
A lot has happened here at Pfizer since COVID, but I'm curious what you learned about what it took to be a CEO during that period. I think perhaps diplomat was added to the title of CEO given the responsibilities that businesses took on at that moment. So, do you feel like the job requirements changed in that period?
I do think so, yes. Health, because of COVID, became extremely politicized. It was presented in multiple different shapes and forms, but required from the CEOs of the health companies to be able to navigate the very dangerous minefield almost, which was driven not by science, not by patient needs, not by health needs, but by politics.
But did the expectations for you as a leader change?
As I said before, the leadership needs to be anchored in values and in strong beliefs that reflect you. The number one thing that people are looking is authenticity. If you try to pretend and speak about something that people can see that is not you, they will see it immediately. And nobody likes that.
Well, speaking of authenticity, be authentic with me now. You're turning 65 this year. How many more years do you think you'll be leading Pfizer?
I think I grow every year in my role. It's a habit every December, I take a glass of wine.
What? And what wine is that?
And then I reflect on how I was when I started the year and how I am as a personality. What have I learned? What have I changed in my life? And I think that the December that I will realize that I'm the same like January will be the December I will take the decision to go.
And so, how did that moment of reflection go last year?
Okay. You've made a significant bet on cancer treatment as a core of Pfizer's future. Why is that?
I think for two reasons. The first and foremost is that the medical need is there. Cancer is the number one killer of diseases. Cancer is one of the most feared diseases in the world and everyone is affected by it. Not necessarily as a patient, thank God, but as a friend, as a son, as a husband, so it affects all of us.
All of our lives are touched by cancer.
So, and Pfizer and science was ready for us. Pfizer, we had the capabilities to be able to make a difference in that field. And the science really was breaking the moment that we decided to do all these investments in areas that were very new and highly promising, like the technology of ADCs, which is where we invested the most. So, the demand was there and our ability to make a difference was there, so it was a noble cause for us.
Cancer is not the only bet that Pfizer is making today. You recently acquired MedSera to expand obesity treatments. You spent close to $10 billion to win that company away from Novo Nordisk in a bidding war that became a little bit ugly. What were the stakes of that deal for Pfizer?
Obesity is an area that is growing very fast. So, the patients, the needs of humanity to address it is very, very high. And with the GLP-1s was the first time that we had a medical class, a medicine class that could bring serious results. When we decided to go there, we looked at the need as we did with oncology. We need also the science and we needed our capabilities. And our capabilities were ideal to win in that area. Obesity is a primary care. It is a disease of the masses. And Pfizer is a powerhouse in primary care commercially, manufacturing-wise, and research-wise. It is for us the ability to be able to bring something differentiated in the marketplace so that we can win. And that was the opportunity that Myovant gave us.
You've talked about the importance of your values as a leader. Were there particular values that you brought to that acquisition?
In all acquisitions, I brought the value of courage. When you buy something at $10 billion, you need to have the stomach to do it. You need to have the ability to understand the risks. You need to convince people. And you need to execute.
You seem to be behind some of your competitors when it comes to obesity, Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, other leaders. Pfizer's not the leader at the moment. How do you think you're going to catch up and potentially pass them?
We're not the leader because we don't have a product in the market yet, and they do. I think probably we'll be the third ones to come with the introduction of a product in that marketplace, and that should happen in 2 years.
That will be by year 2028. So, for us, two things will make the difference. One, it is the product. We aspire to bring into the market an obesity treatment that instead of weekly injections requires monthly injections. That's a very big differentiation. That's a very big benefit for those that value it. And that's a serious reason to switch to you.
So, ideally, same impact, but I'm doing 12 shots a year, not 52.
Very well said. And it is very, very important to be able to understand that that puts very different perspectives in the convenience that the people are experiencing. And still you will get the same weight loss and the same safety tolerability profile.
You mentioned your stomach or the company's stomach earlier. You're on a bit of an acquisition streak. Do you have a stomach for further deals?
I do and we do. The big difference between us and others is that we place our bets.
If you see how much companies have invested in acquisitions, we stand out. There is no one that since 2022 has invested—not even close, not even half of what we have invested. We invested almost 70 billion dollars since 2022, 80 if you start a little bit earlier, in significant areas in inflammation, in migraine, and in cancer. So for us it is pretty much make sure that we execute well on these acquisitions and we deliver the results rather than build a bit more.
What does AI mean for Pfizer?
AI is transformative. AI will change the way that we discover and develop medicines, the way we manufacture medicines, the way that we market medicines. And the changes will be so deep and disruptive that I believe will generate new winners and new losers. There will be companies that will find themselves on the top of the list because they got it right. And there are companies that will find themselves at the bottom because they were complacent or they got it wrong. They tried but not the right recipe. And that's the big risk because I don't think anyone knows yet what's the best way to transform yourself through AI.
Has AI replaced anything in your research and development pipeline so far?
If you are asking if we have progress, I mean like if we have designed a molecule through AI, yes, we have. It's not a medicine yet because that takes multiple years. The closest example to something like that you are asking is our pill for COVID, Paxlovid. Usually the preclinical phase of a medicine is 5 years. In Paxlovid we did it in 6 months. Preclinical means before you test it in humans.
And that was because of machine learning at the time, which was basically the preliminary form of AI.
Are there measurable ways you can show that AI is increasing productivity inside of Pfizer, or are you just giving an example of a shortened timeline? Are there other things that you're looking for and watching?
Oh yes, there are. If you've seen, Pfizer in the last 3 years had a very impressive record of reducing our cost base. That was necessary because COVID created a huge opportunity for Pfizer because we were able to save the world basically. But then COVID became less of an issue and our revenues were cut almost in half.
And the costs associated with that.
And the costs associated with all of that needed to go out. So we were very successful in taking out billions of cost out without affecting the top line by three things: focusing, simplifying things, and technology, which AI is the biggest part of that. Simplification also—let's not underestimate the impact that can have in your cost base. We have a complicated structure, a very complicated life, and as we discussed earlier, having less resources probably speeds up things because people can be very decisive and make decisions rather when you have a room of 20 people that need to decide something, it takes them forever.
You've said that AI will separate winners and losers from those who embrace it and those who don't among the different companies. Are there qualities in your mind of those companies who will emerge as winners?
I would say what I think will be the most important. The number one, it is culture and people. And I think that's the most important. It is organizational inertia. It is the ability of an organization to transform itself into an AI-native operation now that the tools are available. That's the very difficult part. And that depends on leadership, people, culture.
Albert, you speak a lot about speed. This is something you wrote about in your annual report last year, the importance of increasing speed at Pfizer. I have to ask, at a pharmaceutical company, what's lost with that emphasis on speed? What are the risks if you're focused on going faster and faster?
I think it is extremely important that we do things faster without cutting any corners. And because we are a highly regulated industry, I don't think it is allowed of us to move faster by not documenting robustly the efficacy or not documenting robustly the safety. But to move fast, there are a lot of opportunities. We have a saying in Pfizer, 'Time is life,' paraphrasing 'time is money.' Because bringing a medicine for a cancer patient earlier makes all the difference in the world if that medicine will allow someone to see the wedding of the son or the graduation of the daughter. There is nothing more important in their life and speed is what will allow them to do it.
And how many of us have lost a loved one only to find out two or three years later that an innovation makes it possible for them to have lived longer?
Unfortunately, many. And that's why it is important to understand time is life.
Coming out of COVID was a big come down for Pfizer. You said at one point, 'We saved the planet.' And then you come out of this period, your revenue goes down, your stock price goes down. You've said that that impacted you psychologically. What did you mean by that?
Oh, I took it very bad. I'm a very high achiever. Success and being able to achieve things drives me. And to go from the top performer to the bottom performer, although not in everything, but in stock price, for example, that was something that I didn't take lightly. And I know that my whole organization didn't take it lightly. For many of them, that was lack of external validation of our value. I knew though that I am the leader, so everybody is watching me. So, I knew that first of all, I should overcome my psychological...
And I have. Yeah. And the most important, I knew that I need to find the path, the new path, and rally an organization behind it and inspire people that we have a solution. This is where we go. That's the most important thing that a leader can do. 2023 was the year that we experienced all these very big problems and it was a challenging year for me. But I always say that what differentiates winners from losers is not that winners never fall.
You were saying earlier 95% of what Pfizer tries doesn't work.
Thank you. What differentiates winners from losers is that the winners always stand up.
How would you counsel someone who's going through that experience themselves?
You know, I'm not counseling them. I know what I was saying to my people. First of all, I was not hiding that I am also affected, but I was bringing the optimism that we discussed earlier. I was bringing that there is a way. And the way is 1, 2, 3. And I tried to explain to people that you were the admiration of the whole world. You were the guys that saved the world when nobody thought that could be saved. And you did it in ways that nobody thought it is possible. How you discovered it, how you manufactured it, how you developed it, all of them. You are the same people now. Because the sales went to half because COVID is not in demand anymore, COVID products, doesn't mean that you are someone different. You are the guy that did that. Guess what? We are going to do it again with cancer this time.
Well, speaking of that external validation, the stock price today is about where it was in 2020 after billions of dollars of acquisitions. Is Wall Street getting something wrong about Pfizer?
Wall Street takes time to adjust their projections. We made very clear that we have strong conviction of high single-digit growth. And the street is not there. It is our duty to convince them. The street is in show me mode. Show me mode in our case is execution. So, every quarter, if you deliver, that's a very strong point. But more importantly, pipeline. So, the readouts of our pipeline are I think the things that will convince or not the street to adjust their projections. If street projections were where our projections are, the stock could easily be double based on multiples and EPS projections. So, I am hopeful that those things will be clear in the next couple of years.
It's time to show the street what you're doing.
We already showed the street our ability to deliver top line. Since 2023 that we had this COVID, it is four times—four earnings in 2024, four earnings in 2025, and one in 2026. This is nine earnings. All nine times we beat expectations. But the street now really pays attention to that.
Earlier this year, President Trump traveled to China with a whole plane full of CEOs. I believe not one of them was from your industry. Did that surprise you?
