The CEO Moment: Pfizer’s Albert Bourla
Time · LC · trust 21/100
As CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla emerged on the global stage during the COVID pandemic, leading the vaccine-maker to new heights while becoming a prominent voice for the scientific community. The years that followed have been more challenging. The pharmaceutical giant has sought out new avenues of success with cancer-treatment drugs and to catch up with its competitors, which have dominated the market for weight-loss medications. Bourla spoke with TIME recently at his New York City HQ.
You're turning 65 this year. How many more years do you think you'll be leading Pfizer?
Every December I take a glass of wine and then I reflect on how I was when I started the year, how I am as a personality, what have I learned, what have I changed in my life. I think that this? December I realize that I'm the same as January will be the December I make the decision to go.
Coming out of COVID was a big comedown for Pfizer’s business. You’ve said that impacted you psychologically. What did you mean?
I’m a very, very high achiever. To go from the top performer to the bottom performer—although not in everything, but in stock price, for example—was something that I didn’t take lightly. And I know that my whole organization didn’t take it lightly. I needed to find the path and rally an organization behind it. I tried to explain to people, “You were the guys that saved the world when nobody thought that it could be saved. And you did it in ways that nobody thought it was possible. Guess what? We are going to do it again, with cancer this time.”
You seem to be behind some of your competitors when it comes to obesity. How do you think you’re going to catch up?
We aspire to bring into the market an obesity treatment that instead of weekly injections requires monthly injections. That’s a very big differentiation.
What’s your relationship like with Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
I told him that there are things that we have very different views [on]—vaccines, for example. If we select the areas that don’t have that big of a difference and try to work together to produce something good ... that will create a bonding and will take away the trust issues, and then we can tackle the vaccines.
The Health Secretary has attacked a revolving door between Washington and the industry. You recently hired a top FDA official to be your chief medical officer. What went into that decision? The FDA official used to be a Pfizer employee before going to the FDA.
Is it possible for the U.S. to build a medical supply chain without China?
I don’t think it’s a good thing to have a reliance on the supply chain of China when it comes to medicines.
I think we can, but we need to provide market incentives. There was a reason why medicines that used to be manufactured in the U.S. moved out.
You’ve prioritized speed here at Pfizer. Are there any risks for a pharmaceutical company to be so focused on speed?
I think it is extremely important that we do things faster without cutting any -corners ... We have a saying in Pfizer: “Time is life.” Bringing 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.
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