Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Making Medicine in the U.S., Vaccines After COVID, and How He Gets Along With RFK Jr.

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. 

But can we build it here?

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.