Dr. Albert Bourla, Chairman and CEO, Pfizer 
Interviewer: Dr. David B. Agus, Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine


Brainstorm Health 2022 - Leveraging New Frontiers: The Importance Of A Global Strategy 

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Brainstorm Health 2022 - Leveraging New Frontiers


Brainstorm Health 2022 - Leveraging New Frontiers: The Importance Of A Global Strategy 


So I have the privilege now of having a conversation with literally one of my heroes. This is a gentleman who in 2019 became ceo of Pfizer after several decades at the company and was not what you would expect as the typical ceo of veterinarian by background. I hadn't heard of him until he became Ceo and I was you know like most of you a little bit suspect who is this guy who's going to take over one of the great pharmaceutical companies in the United States. But what he did cannot be overstated. This is a gentleman who had one of the great legacy vaccine companies in the world and he decided to say screw it. I'm going to partner with a small company in Germany that makes RNA vaccines. He had the opportunity of being given billions of dollars from the federal government and he said, I don't think they're gonna work fast enough to do what we do. I am going to do this myself and he did not take their money and he did it themselves. And the beneficiaries of that are all of us because with the fighter vaccine with packs loaded, I just learned that I was calling it packs loaded and apparently it's packs loaded. I've been corrected with pac Slovin which is the only therapeutic that really works to lower the viral load dramatically and black hospitalization countless lives globally have been saved. And so I'm excited to talk to Albert bourla today, not just about what fighter has done in which all of us know but about where his brain is of what's going to happen because I want that same passion and vision that he had to help us with Alzheimer's heart disease and many others. So dr borland. Huh? There you are. Yeah. What one SEC? We can't hear you. We're doing alright on audio. Yes. Now you can hear me stop first of all, let me say what a big pleasure it is for me to be virtual with you. But I'm very sorry. I'm not impressed as uh, most of the people know my wife tested negative, a contestant positive while I was trying to get into the plane. Uh, so I stayed back with her. Uh, and this was not responsible also don't know, unifying positive or negative? For sure. I'm negative. And she's doing well because she's also taking the pills, but never the I'm happy that I'm here virtual there. Uh, so that I can contribute to the action diversity of this country. Ah, is she taking the Merc pills or the Fighter pills? I didn't check with her, whatever. Um, Albert obviously, you know, this has been a crazy two years for you. Um, and for Fighter and what you accomplished for the globe. We all thank you for. But that same passion, you know that you did. And and beautifully described in your book Moonshot. How do we apply it to other diseases. How do we translate that into those advances that we all need? It's a one in $1 million dollar question. It is what is in my mind. Um, I believe that we were fortunate to see the power of science in uh, it's more profound demonstration really a scientific advancement and the next dimension execution on this advancement saving the world which through this fire, everyone who is working on other places of science trying to do the same clearly the times we're very different when when everything was looked dark, when everything was said. And we were feeling all that the civilization of the way that we know it is threatened. So that drove people working around the clock 24/7 and uh not going back home to see families. There was a tremendous level of sacrificial but nevertheless the covid is not the only thing that is devastating the world. We have cancer. We have heart diseases, We have so many others situations. And I think that everything is a question of culture. Everything is a question of mind, sir. And once you have proven to the world, but it can be done if we do it differently, not only what fighter did, what bionic did, but what the FBI did, what other regulators did, what other companies did in the way that they collaborated together. If we do the same in the other diseases. And not go back to the previous non patterns of how we handle with diseases. I think we will advance by many, many years. The scientific innovation. And so what what's your strategy now for fighter? We see you made a big acquisition uh you know, this week, an $11 million uh-Migraine area. You previously with arena, you license in the bio and tech. What are you looking for? I mean what's the M and a strategic vision for fighter over the next several years? If I have to summarize it, it is that we are looking for things that we can add value, things that either in our hands or with our collaboration can recreate what we did with biotech for example. Uh if it's not there, this added value I don't think makes sense for us to get involved. It's a good example of what you just mentioned, the company that we just acquired or we announced that we're about to acquire by heaven. They had the franchise in my brain which we took and then they had another franchise in neuroscience which is extremely, extremely important. But we are not active right now over there. We are not having the best scientists anymore. We divested everything. We had it a long time ago. So we only took the part that in our hands can make a difference. We can add value. The same is with everything we do when we went into the antiviral for RsV which was the previous one from this one. Uh It is exactly the same concept that we have certain expertise in an environment. We have such an expertise in RSV in our hands. This very early scientific project could be accelerated, could we could we could make a difference for the world. That's exactly what is our licensing and acquisition started when I was in Davos lesser or now 2.5 years ago I sat with a chinese pharmaceutical executive who made a staggering statement to me and he said, you know, most of the chemicals that you're using in your drugs, the United States, the raw products are made here in china Over 90% and tomorrow if we change the pricing or just say we're not going to export, we can dramatically lower prices in our country and obviously we would hurt your country and we saw supply chain issues especially early on with pharmaceuticals um, in this pandemic, you guys did something remarkable which was internalized your entire supply chain for this vaccine. What's going to happen now with bio pharmaceuticals in the supply chain going forward when we're still reliant on many of the raw products from elsewhere. Yeah, particularly in the US. It's it's true that the active substances for the medicines in general, they are mainly done in china and then they were mainly done before in India and they were mainly done in the US before actually everything left out for multiple reasons because it was not attractive for the manufacturer of these ingredients. It's not pharmaceutical companies. Chemical companies mainly to produce in the US. Uh it is mainly an issue of health care independency and affect generic medicine in our case for example, but we do not have generics. Very very very small proportion Of of our medicines, less than 10% has any type of dependency from China or India. It's very very small. Mostly it is we have been able to secure to isolate let's say our supply chains from this problem. But the problem is very big from public health perspective because the risk is there. I think the US needs to take brave measures and I know that particularly the Secretary of commerce right now has been in charge of finding solutions to that and she she's asking all the right questions and I think she knows what can be done to reverse the situation and I'm sure she will be decisive to take action. That makes sense for the United States. And I think you know I believe we can do that especially with this administration focusing on it but the rest of the globe when I look at places like Africa who say you know we want to start to manufacture our own vaccines and our own medicines and I know the complexity of manufacturing and I know the I. P. Issues. So two questions here. One is should there be patents on these medicines in developing countries. And number two is how do we deal with that sovereign concept of people wanting to do their own manufacturing. Um and how are you going to enable that potentially in continents like Africa. I think that doesn't make sense. The patterns to be an obstacle for countries that anyway they don't have the means to pay for that. And uh we had done a lot of steps ourselves as fighters and we are planning to do way more in making sure that eventually all medicines that they are fat and protected are available to all these countries. So I don't think that's wrong to say that we should not levi. P beyond the way of them having access to medicine. Now let's go to the specific issue which says has I. P. Or intellectual property inhibited the ability of these countries to vaccinate their people. And the unfortunate profound that's what it's not right now. We have hundreds of millions of our doses of a community in the hands of the U. S. Government that they are giving them to Africa for free. Not at reduced cost, not at the cost. You pay transportation at your warehouse for free and they are not taking them. There is no not because they have already vaccinated there. People less than 20% of the vaccinated. The reason is in this place there is a significant crisis of mistrust towards governments and authorities. There is a tremendous amount of residency. People don't want to do vaccines and they are lacking infrastructure. What it is maybe a 20 minutes drive to go to CVS here to get your vaccine over there could be you walk five hours to get the vaccine. So the and maybe you will find it maybe not. So it is a lot of things that needs to be done and it is not of the intellectual property. That's why in my mind if we want to move the needle, it's not enough only to say for example that intellectual property I will give all my products for free. That's it. Or it costs we need mainly to make sure batory work to provide the infrastructure in these countries so they can absorb, it's meaningless to give a brain breast cancer medicine. For example, South Africa even know woman is diagnosed with breast cancer because there's no one to make an X ray. So I think these are the issues that they are the real blockages. Now, I sympathize that we want also to manufacture it to their I think there are other medicines that they are way more simpler to manufacturing there or not. And there are genetic, there's no way that anyone would prohibit them from doing it. And I think when we see that they have issues of vaccination infrastructure is vaccinated, I think it's a little bit ambitious to think that they can start by manufacturing the highest stakes medicines, which is like a marina. Listen, I agree with you in many respects. I do think building a digital infrastructure for distribution, adult vaccination and others is something that we have to take from this pandemic and move forward because it's going to be critical. Um, when you look at the landscape, for example, cancer, I mean obviously near and dear to my heart are trying to develop new advances in cancer and you have been at the forefront of things like immunotherapy. What excites you of what's down the pipe? What keeps you up at night in a positive way? Just the excitement of how you can impact people's lives in this regard when it comes to cancer. I think the thing that excites me the most is that right now the amount of clinical research that is happening across the globe for cancer is unprecedented. It's a mind boggling and there's a lot of advance I think in the next let's say five and 10 years we will see dramatic improvements in the field of cancer based on probabilities of success given how much the research is happening the the previous way. But it was tremendously exciting was the immunotherapy was providing medicines that will forcing your immune system to attack your cancer, recognized the immune system the same way that recognized covid for example, with the vaccine and in this field, the technology from RNA. I think it's very exciting field of new research how to use em RNA messages that we can send to ourselves not to recognize the virus like Covid but recognize the cancer, sir and attack. Um, I think though, that the best news will come from our understanding of the mystery of mechanism that the cancer cells are using to evade our immune system and how they are trained generate the resistance to medicine. So this mechanism of resistance and evasion of the new system are holding still several secrets that we are at the cusp of uh of discovery at the moment. And the more we know about this drill, the more medicines you will see being able to be way more durable and eventually make cancer from an acute disease to a chronic disease and then eventually to move to cuba. All right. I hope so. I mean from your mouth to God's ears. Um, I want to go kind of switch a little bit and just go quick questions with you. Simple answers, a bunch of questions. Favorite sport, basketball. Um favorite food when Ariana cooks. But mine too believe me. Um, when will we have the variant specific boosters here in the United States Do you think? Very, you know, sequential questions in the fall in the fall. And will it be a hybrid of multiple boosters? Do you think it will depend on the FDA? This this this we are ready for a novel and they're already with benevolent. But FDA made clear. But this time they want to tell the companies that are working on research which variants to include in the next booster likely doing flu. So whatever their decision is benevolent or malevolent? We are ready. We will have a date actually next month. And when do you think? Um, three shots for under the age of 5? I think we'll have a date of this month. Um, What will be the cadence for somebody over 65 getting a booster going forward depends on the variance. If we stay with the same variants, likely we can hope to go all the way to a yearly vaccine, although it's very challenging right now. Um, but so if the variance changes will depend on how much they escape. However, I really recognized that the biggest talents for the health care system right now will become the compliance with vaccination recommendations. People will be less inclined follow religiously. The required the recommendations if we have to do every three or four or five and even if they don't know for how long this will last. That's why working on an annual vaccine, A vaccine that will last at least a year is the Holy grail right now. And we are very intensively. It is remarkable. I mean there is no blood test to say you have enough immunity not to get a booster. You can wait for months. You have to get it right away. It's remarkable that we are flying blind in this space. Um, we know the B cells and the teeth and we know all of that yet. We can't measure and personalized to the individual. But more importantly we have, we don't have a vaccine that will do the job right now. Something that will hold a year. That's one of the most important challenge designs and how are we going to bring in mucosal immunity. So we can not just block serious illness but potentially block infectiousness and individuals. I think there are multiple ways that you can do it and you can enhance both the Humira and human element and the the antibody responses to all basically the tissues. Um and as I said we are working on that. It's technique. I can discuss it technically how we can have ways that they are increased but it's very technical. So what we've realized obviously over the last two years is that the global world is connected in remarkable ways. It has to have changed your business and how you approach things with the global connectivity with the awareness of disease. Do you think the strategic direction a fighter is changing based on these new awareness is or is it gonna be the same as it was before? Pre pandemic everything is saying that the company is very different. Pre pandemic Before the pandemic. The ambitions that I had uh for the company were to build something that Or in 10 years that already have achieved. I wanted to make the company the most patient friendly company. The one that recognizes the number one inpatient survey We're six or 7. We accomplished that this year. I wanted that our people are the most engaged people. They aren't feeling so proud. We accomplished that last year. I was hoping that we will have a reputation of the company way different than what used to be. We accomplish that. Yes everything now is different to set the bar way way higher and to be able to to accomplish that. You need to do things that are even greater now. How that affects the fact that there is a global connectivity. I think in addition to seeing how connected we are also so how a tendency to nationalize and isolate is very strong. In the first six months of the vaccine manufacturing. Let's not forget the U. S. Was not allowing us to export anything outside the US europe was setting significant restrictions to what we could export outside the europe and India blocked completely all the exports from India not for us because we were not manufacturing that. But for the Astrazeneca vaccine. Uh they didn't think that others are ending it as well. Right? They failed America first euro first in the affairs about your talents. Because in a pandemic you can be as protective as your name. And if we don't see that you spoke before about leadership. I think this is what I think we all need to do to be able to rise to the occasion. You know when I look at fighter and the change pre imposed pandemic to me. The biggest change is the ability to take risks. Um, you took risk as a company. Probably more than any other company in this country paid off, not just for Fighter and its shareholders, but I think more importantly for the citizens of the Globe and we at the fortune conference and really every citizen of this country, thank you for taking that risk because that risk has changed the world. So thank you. Let me get one. We'll talk soon.