Albert Bourla

Chairman and CEO, Pfizer

I try to be who I am. This is how I grew up. I think it is important for a leader to be seen like that. But it's very difficult to fake it.

Summary

In this episode of Leadership Matters, Alan is joined by the Chairman and CEO of Pfizer, Dr. Albert Bourla, to discuss Dr. Bourla’s long career at the company, the company’s remarkable race to create a coronavirus vaccine, and the book he recently published on that journey.

Having taken the reins at Pfizer just over a year before the pandemic, Dr. Bourla was faced with one of the most difficult challenges of his career with little time to prepare. In their conversation, Alan and Dr. Bourla discuss those challenges, as well as Dr. Bourla’s childhood as the son of Holocaust survivors in Thessaloniki, Greece. With one moonshot solution under his belt already, Dr. Bourla is excited about Pfizer’s future and believes the methods they have developed will be able to provide solutions to some of the largest challenges in human health.

Mentions & Resources in this Episode

• Moonshot: Inside Pfizer's Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible

• Mission Possible: The Race for a Vaccine

• The Genesis Prize

• CNN Business CEO of the Year

Guest Bio

During his more than 25 years at Pfizer, Albert has built a diverse and successful career, holding several senior positions across a range of markets and disciplines. When he took the reins as CEO in January 2019, Albert accelerated Pfizer’s transformation to become a more science-driven, innovative company – divesting its consumer and off-patent products businesses and dramatically increasing its R&D budget. To create a culture in which the company’s people and science could thrive, Albert and his leadership team established Pfizer’s Purpose Blueprint, which included four core values: courage, excellence, equity and joy.

A powerful example of Pfizer’s capabilities and culture was seen in the company’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Investing more than $2 billion dollars at-risk, Albert inspired colleagues to deliver a safe and effective vaccine in just eight months – a process that typically take 8-10 years – without compromising quality or integrity. A year later, continuing to move at the speed of science, Pfizer delivered the first FDA-authorized oral antiviral treatment for COVID-19 by implementing the same sense of urgency and new ways of working that had made the vaccine program so successful. The company is now applying many of these “lightspeed” principles to projects across a wide range of therapeutic areas, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, inflammatory conditions and more.

Albert is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and holds a Ph.D. in the Biotechnology of Reproduction from the Veterinary School of Aristotle University. In January 2022, he was named the 2022 Genesis Prize Laureate in recognition of his leadership during the pandemic. In 2021, he was named CEO of the Year by CNN Business, included in Insider Magazine’s Most Transformative CEOs list, and inducted into the Crain’s New York Business 2021 Hall of Fame. That same year, he received the Appeal of Conscience Award in recognition of his extraordinary leadership in service of the global community and The Atlantic Council’s Distinguished Business Leadership Award for his and Pfizer’s work on the COVID-19 vaccine. He is on the executive committee of The Partnership for New York City, a vice president of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations, a director on multiple boards – Pfizer Inc., The Pfizer Foundation, PhRMA and Catalyst – and a Trustee of the United States Council for International Business. In addition, Albert is a member of the Business Roundtable, the Business Council and the New York City Mayor’s Corporate Council.

Clips from this Episode

• On the decision for mRNA vaccines and how they'll handle new Covid variants

• On the ambitious "moonshot" developments Pfizer is working on

• On collaborating with other pharmaceutical companies in the race for a Covid vaccine

• On learning of the Pfizer Covid vaccine's high efficacy: "it was like a miracle"

• On his experience becoming the new CEO right before the pandemic hit

Episode Transcription

Alan Fleischmann

You're listening to “Leadership Matters” on SiriusXM, and on leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with a dear friend and a remarkable leader who's at the head of a company responsible for saving and protecting the lives of millions and millions of people around the globe. Dr. Albert Bourla is chairman and CEO of Pfizer. Albert assumed this position as the head of the company in January of 2019. And less than a year later was faced with one of the largest challenges in the company's history, I would say probably the globe's history: the production and distribution of a vaccine for a deadly new virus. As we all know, Pfizer rose to the occasion, and a record nine months produced a safe, effective vaccine that has since been administered to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The numbers even increase every day. But the journey to get here was not easy. And Alberta was faced with many difficult decisions along the way, whose consequences were quite literally the choice between life or death. Albert has discussed these challenges at length in his recent book Moonshot: Inside Pfizer's Nine Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible. I'm thrilled to have him on the show today to discuss the book, his life and career, and the advice he would offer to other leaders who are listening today who face challenging times as well. Albert, welcome to “Leadership Matters.” It is such a personal pleasure to have you on the show today.

Albert Bourla

Thank you for having me. It's a great pleasure also.

Alan Fleischmann

Well, I’m a big fan. I wanted to start off talking about your background a little bit. You were born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece. Your parents were Sephardic Jews and Holocaust survivors. What did they do for a living? What was life around the house like when you were a kid?

Albert Bourla

My father had a small business, in partnership with his brother. They were producing liquors. And then were selling them with their own brand. It was a small, very small business, but give us a happy life. My mother was not working. She was taking care of me and my sister and the household. And we grew up in a family, not a lot of money. So it was not that we would be spoiled as sometimes we do with our kids today. Everything was measured. But we had the basics.

Alan Fleischmann

And you grew up in a in a community. In a it's an extraordinary town, or city, that actually has an amazing history, but in the shadows of the Holocaust, in the shadows of World War II. So did you grow up knowing that there was a much larger, much more thriving community than you were living in as a kid?

Albert Bourla

It was the most thriving, I think, Sephardic community in the world at the time, and many were calling Salonika “Little Israel” or “Little Jerusalem” of the Balkans, or this type of names. And the city in general was a very multicultural city, where at least three religions coexisted for centuries. And multiple, multiple languages were spoken. The community shrunk a little bit, but still was the dominant community, I think, in the city, when the world started in the second world war: there were around 55,000 Jews at a time. And very, very few survive: 2000 probably survived, among themselves were my mom and dad. And they were introduced by relatives in a typical matchmaking of that time. They liked each other, they decided to make a family together. And that's it.

Alan Fleischmann

I loved that. And also, from what I understand, talking to you about your mother, she was an extraordinarily optimistic person, which really strikes me that someone could have experienced what she did by surviving that period and losing a lot of family. And she had her sister I know survived, but that she was such an optimist.

Albert Bourla

Yeah, I she was such a driving force, my mom. It's those that they remember her every time I meet someone that had met my mother and remember her, this is what they bring up: “I always remember how driving personality she was, and she was optimistic she thought everything can be done.” And she used her experience, of course, which was a near death experience standing in front of a firing squad, and removed us the last moment to teach me mean that nothing is in my system, nothing is impossible in life. I was second before getting killed, and now where I am now with you, and the family and everything. And so, she was very optimistic.

Alan Fleischmann

She turned a tragedy, which must have been horrific, into a bit of good fortune, which I'm sure was, knowing you as I do, part of your DNA: you're one of the most optimistic people I know. But also, what strikes me about you, Albert, is you also believe that every single life matters. And I know that's a big part of your journey and your leadership is that you take every life seriously, and I got to imagine that comes from your mother. That idea of every life matters, and you can make a difference.

Albert Bourla

Yeah.

Alan Fleischmann

Following the Second World War, the Jewish families there also faced other challenges, there was the Civil War. There was a period there, that was was darkness too. But your parents actually stayed put, and they built a life and kept going in Greece. And you, I know, have a great love of your Greece. In your book, you quote a lot of the greats, the Aristotles of the world, the great philosophers of Greece. So did that start at a young age? Or is it something in the water when you're a Greek? It is it a big part of who you are, the wisdom of the great Greek philosophers? Is that something that was something you spoke about at home? Or is it school or just as part of the Greek culture?

Albert Bourla

It came to me naturally, because it is a second nature for us, we don’t only have Classical Studies in Greece, and we are learning in our schools, no matter if it is a private school or if it is school in a village, they are all learning to read the Greek philosophers. That's part of the educational system, and they so much embedded that we are using quotes of them in our daily communication, when we want to make an emphasis to some friends or to whoever. It's easy for us to use one of the quotes that they said to emphasize. And so for me, as I was reading some of the chapters, immediately, a couple of them came to my mind. But it was natural. Then, after I finished all the chapters, I said, let me now go back and find more to add — that will be fun. And a quote in the beginning. And I did. It was not difficult, it was very easy, because those people spoke about a lot of things. And their quotes are so powerful because they have a concentrated wisdom: with a few words, you don't say one or two — you say multiple things.

Alan Fleischmann

Do you have a favorite one that you kind of live by as a guiding light?

Albert Bourla

Yes, I just talked about this one in the chapter, I think in the top there when I speak in the book about that we thought big, and I started that our problem is not that we aim high and miss. Our problem is that we aim low and hit. And I found it remarkable because it was giving two messages in one. The first was that we need to think big, which is the thing that comes to mind. But the second is that our problem is that we are mediocre. That we are setting the bar low and we think that everything is fine. And that's even worse than knowing that we are keeping low, and we think life is good because of that. So I found it very, very exciting.

Alan Fleischmann

That’s very telling you about the journey that you led also because you could have led a journey that would have met an expectation that every scientist set out for you, but rather you raise the bar and said no, that is possible and impossible is possible. You attended Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in the veterinarian school and you got your PhD in 1985. What was it that inspired you to study veterinary medicine?

Albert Bourla

Love for medicines, love for animals. And the two were combined, so I said that's what I want to do. I was not thinking careers at the time. I was 16, 17 when I made the decision to that way. In Greece you go straight to the vet school, you didn't go to college before you go straight to to the medical school. You don't go to the law school. Actually is the same all over Europe. So the decisions need to be made early in your life. And I made it.

Alan Fleischmann

I love that. And, I wouldn’t have thought, but that must have been the trajectory that got you to Pfizer?

Albert Bourla

It was. After I graduated as a veterinarian, I also wanted to go to science. So this is why I did a PhD. And then when I graduated, I also had my PhD in hand, and everything I wanted was to continue in academia as I was in research in university. And that's where I wanted to continue. But Pfizer was looking for a high caliber scientists in the veterinarian area, to get into their animal health business. To deal with the veterinarian affairs, so communication of the professors, of universities, communications with authorities, and with, let's say, key veterinarians, customers. And there were very few veterinarians with a PhD, very, very few. And as a result, even fewer were available. So they insisted on me, I didn't want to, but they made it impossible for me to refuse, and I went there.

And when I went to Pfizer, I went with in my mind the condition that this was a sabbatical. So I'm going to take a break from academia for a year, maybe two. And let's say within two years, after going out, then I can go back and continue what I really felt is the dream of my life, to be in academia. The other reason why I didn't, I was reluctant, was because I had to relocate from Salonika to go to Athens to do this job. And at the time, I was thinking that Salonika was the center of the world. When eventually I went, I realized that I loved the private sector more than academia. It was way more vibrant, way less political. Things were moving fast. Resources could come and then you could have an impact. But also, I realized that it wasn't that bad to live in another place. I loved Athens, I had a very good life. And that was the beginning.

Alan Fleischmann

How long did you live in Athens?

Albert Bourla

I lived there for three years. And I still remember them as some of the best years in my life. Although my wife doesn't want to say that because she wants the best years of our life to be after we got married. And they were fantastic years. And that was the first of nine relocations that I had to do with Pfizer. Imagine I didn't want to do the first one, right, from Salonika. We’ve lived in nine different cities of five different countries with Miriam, my wife.

Alan Fleischmann

Now, Miriam, when you got married to Miriam, were you in Athens at that point, or were you already on to the next place?

Albert Bourla

No, while I was in Athens, towards the end, I started dating her. And then when I got transferred to Brussels, we discussed and she wanted to join me in Brussels. And we discussed with her father and he said “absolutely, but firstly, you need to get married.” I accepted. And we got married. And we leave. So we got married and two months after I moved to Brussels.

Alan Fleischmann

You know, they always say that with every extraordinary leader is a fabulous partner or spouse. And I know your wife, Miriam, and she really is your partner. And you've been on this great journey. And I know that with all that you went through, being in the spotlight over the last two years, particularly having that partner must have meant the world.

Albert Bourla

Oh yeah, she’s my habor. She’s where I can go and find peace and salvation.

Alan Fleischmann

It's true and beautiful. And inspiring. So you went to Brussels then, after a few years in Athens. Did the job change when you changed locations?

Albert Bourla

Yes. As I said before, I joined Pfizer as the head of the veterinarian affairs of the animal health business in Greece. And then, two years later, a year before I relocated, Pfizer acquired the animal health business of SmithKline Beecham at the time. And so during that integration of the two businesses, they asked me to do the Greece integration of the marketing, which was not what I was doing. So suddenly, I found myself doing marketing in the last year of my assignment in Greece. And this is where there was a big “aha” moment because I liked it even more. And I moved to Brussels to become Regional Marketing Manager for North Europe. And then eventually we added Eastern Europe.

Alan Fleischmann

That's great. And you were traveling probably when you were based in Brussels.

Albert Bourla

I was based in Brussels. And I was working with local marketeers. In every country, I was creating the master materials that they invent, they had to update in their languages. And I was traveling, of course, a lot to understand the markets and discuss with them.

Alan Fleischmann

And then for Brussels, what cities did you live in, what order over the years?

Albert Bourla

So the second was Brussels and the third was Warsaw in Poland. This is where my kids were born. And then we moved back to Belgium, next to Brussels, to Greiner. It’s Brussels, almost. And then we moved to Connecticut, my first assignment in in the US, it was North Connecticut. Back to New York, from there, when I signed jobs, went to Paris, in France, then back to New York.

Alan Fleischmann

That's a lot of travel and a lot of moving. When you eventually joined Pfizer's global vaccines division. and the company's innovative health department head right after that, these experience, obviously, were critical to your leadership that you've actually had to draw from I imagine, as CEO. Are there any lessons learned in those moments? I know you engaged in a lot of innovation, even when you were CFO. You drew from those experiences. And that led to that part. And then when you became CEO, you made some pretty dramatic changes as well. I'm just curious, how impactful were those jobs?

Albert Bourla

I think all the jobs that I did at Pfizer helped me to become who I am. And there was a very big diversity of jobs, including in the animal field where I spent the 1970s. So a lot of time in animal world. And I found that period actually very helpful, even more than the specific jobs because when I first moved to do the first job in the human health in the current pharmaceutical environment, I could see things that others who were doing this job the last 30 years couldn't, because they were used in a specific way of doing things. And I was used in a very different way of doing things in a very different way. Men with less resources, because, you know, we didn't have resources we had in the human field. With higher agility, less complexity. So I knew the value of doing that. And I felt the weight of trying to do things in different ways in valuing human capital. So I think that helped me a lot to do that. But clearly, a lot of the things that I encountered as I was growing in my career, a lot of the things that I didn't learn from, helped me a lot also in the final years that gave me the job. Without that I wouldn't be the one who took it. But we did successfully a lot of things in the reforming, transforming of our business models, the way that we were doing business, we created the focus of business units, we brought a very relentless focus on patient centricity. Before it was more of a brand centricity — the way that the we were thinking was around the brand. Now we start thinking around the patient, and what is his journey as a patient and how we can help that without with our products.

Alan Fleischmann

I would say that — and you just said this very lightly — but I would say that mindset change and business change to go from focusing on the brand, to focus on the patient. And making the patient's journey be the focus, must have been a huge transformation for the company. And it is what people think of now, obviously, since you've been CEO of Pfizer,

Albert Bourla

It was a huge transformation. And people, in the beginning, were uncomfortable. First of all, because we were trying to change something that used to be very successful. Pfizer is known for how good they used to be in branding and in commercial efforts. And everybody's still remembers Viagra and all of that how we created, let's say, those big brand icons, Lipitor, etc, we're very good at that. But then the world was changing. And to go to the next level, you truly needed to think like the patient and be patient centered.

There was only one way that the pharmaceutical company can be financially successful. Only one way: create value for patients. If you don't create value for patients, it's impossible to create value for shareholders or to have financial returns. So that was clear to me. And that was what we had to transform the company to if we wanted to be successful. And despite the fact that it was new, and it was great, we had to change habits of ours that were successful. And so it also became extremely exciting.

So that was what I didn't expect, and where I was so positively surprised. I expected that it would be difficult to try to change things. And I felt that I would need to move slower, and they need to mobilize the organization until they come with me. But there was so much excitement of people thinking that now that's way more novel, to think about the patient. And the the outcomes was almost really bearish for a lot of Pfizer people, when this click in their mind, that whatever is good for patients, and whatever is good for shareholders, is fundamentally at odds was a niche representation of our value proposition. And in fact, the opposite is true.

If you really want to make a difference for the second oldest, try to make a very big difference for patients and the rest will fall into place. That was liberating for a lot of people because they want all to feel that they are part of an organization that is contributing to the greater good. And I didn’t only have people to rally behind me, but who started running ahead of me. So I found that in a lot of cases that I found myself behind the thinking of patient centricity. And I had to catch up rather than the opposite. So it was very fascinating.

Alan Fleischmann

Also, probably from a cultural point of view, it gave everybody at Pfizer a wonderful purpose. That we're in the business of saving lives and patients matter in a way that must have been just transformational too. I mean, you gave people the purpose we all want in life.

Albert Bourla

That gave them the pride of belonging to this organization. And frankly, that gave them also the drive to do what they did to bring solutions to the pandemic.

Alan Fleischmann

And I think that's right. And then also one of these ideas before we get into now you being CEO, when you were COO, I think of you as somebody who brought a lot of entrepreneurial thinking and investing ingenuity. You set things up in a way, if I recall, whee you actually started to invest in other companies and other potential pipelines of entrepreneurship. Am I right?

Albert Bourla

No, you're not right — that's something that we were doing even before I think. What happened in the year of me being the COO and knowing that, unless something criminal happens, I'm going to be the next CEO in a year, it was part of the succession plan. That gave me the ability to have power because everybody knew where this is happening before I become CEO. And to start thinking about what I want to do when I become CEO, and actually start doing it already.

When I became COO, I was very clear on my set of priorities. I didn't spend 100 days to think about them, because everything was already planned in the year before. And I had set in motion, the biggest part of that. So, for example, I had in my mind, that we wee going to change the portfolio of the companies. So we are going to divest companies that were less part of the core purpose of science in the service of patients, and focus the company singularly on science. So that was a challenging thing to do. Right, it was very big businesses, they represented 25% of the sales at the time. So I wanted to divest 95% and stay with 75% of the current sales. And I wanted to do it without financial engineering: just not sell them, I wanted to create higher volume for those two business. So both of them, eventually, we were able to create joint ventures. So we created bigger companies outside Pfizer with partners. One became independent a long time ago and the other is about to become independent in the next couple of months. But it's already outside of Pfizer already.

All of that was to happen immediately. I was planning during that period. The second was I knew that we needed to completely change the way that we viewed digital. I knew that it was not about getting our computers to work. I knew that it is going to be the driving force in everything we do. Digital was going to change everything, from drug discovery to drug design. Now we have computational power to look for drugs in the lab, but to also think how we want the drug to look like and design it with a computer, which is fascinating. But this is not fixing, it is happening right now.

So the same day I took over General Affairs was the same day that a new chief digital officer took over. We discussed all the strategies I had. So it was the first chief digital office of Pfizer. So there were a lot of things that we set in motion. Again, in 2018 we were spending seven billion dollars in R&D. So the last few years before COVID, it was between six and seven billions of R&D per year that we were spending. Now we spend eleven. So it's a huge increase in the magnitude of our R&D span.

And so we'd say portfolio, it's a sense of businesses, in a sense of capital allocation. And of course, in a sense culture. And that was the thing that I left in the first year. Because culture needs to be a whole team that builds it together. So I took the time to build it together. We met with our team, what is the culture? What do we need to be successful? And then we started implementing it.

Alan Fleischmann

I think of that now, about creating both the culture of patient first and then the entrepreneurial culture, which is also what I think of when I think of Pfizer. And they came from that period of realigning, where you prioritize the ingenuity of thinking, about entrepreneurial thinking in a way that frankly, hadn't been probably what people were thinking of, certainly not in the industry.

You became CEO in January 2019, which is a year before the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic. Your priorities in taking over sounds like a lot of them were being built the year before. And then you were able, I guess, with that kind of innovative culture, actually pivot to team development. I imagine all the things that were being done there allowed you to rebuild a team. You also brought in, if I'm not mistaken — you created positions soon after you were CEO that hadn't been had existed before. In that digital space, for instance. You actually, almost say the cabinet level: you said this was a priority from the get go, right?

Albert Bourla

Yes, correct. We never had, let's say, at the cabinet level, as you call it, some of these roles, and we broke this down, for example, it's a very big deal.

Alan Fleischmann

Yeah. So in the book Moonshot, which I love, and I've got copies around, I’m given them now away as gifts to people to inspire them to read it, because it has so many wonderful things in there about how Pfizer, under your leadership, really did take on this impossible journey. And it also talks about your principles and leadership, which is so important to so many people. You offer amazing insights into what it took for Pfizer to produce the vaccine in a record nine months, and I got to be there at the sidelines with you, and thinking, how risky and how daring it was for a leader of a public company, to actually say, what has never been done before: we’ve got to get it done, we’ve got to get it done, and we’ve got to get it done this year. In short, like a couple of the challenges, obviously, they're doing that, but I guess there was nobody to make that decision. But one, and that was the CEO. I'm just curious. You give credit, which you need to, to all the people that got the vaccine with you, your colleagues. But I'm just curious how lonely that experience was for you.

Albert Bourla

It is, in a sense, quite lonely. Many times they’ve been asking me, “what was the big aha after I became CEO,” and to me it was that: that the buck stops here. It’s something that nobody can teach you before. I came into the job knowing what I want to do. And I came into the job well equipped because I was well introduced to the political world, I was used to the press I was well introduced to the banking world and to other companies. So I knew a lot that the CEO has to do, before. So I thought that I'm coming and I knew the business. So I thought, okay, I knew the business. And I know now all the other things, I'm pretty well equipped to become CEO. And then I realize that what they didn't dismiss that, because there's no one to stop me making these decisions, that changes completely their way of thinking.

And I found myself to be more conservative than before. Before I knew that, if it stupid, the CEO will make attempts to stop it. After I became CEO, nobody would have a chance to stop it. So I started become very conservative. And I would say that the first six to nine months, I found myself being way more conservative than typical. And I remember that a few people told me, be careful, because it isn’t conservatism that brought you here. We didn't elect you to have someone to keep status quo. And then it was clear that they elected someone to take the business to the next century. So you need to start doing what you used to do. And I did. But that was, for me, the biggest moment.

So when I had to make this decision the second year, I was clearly not well established, as let's say, the credibility of CEO after several years on the job. And I was doing a lot of changes, but I hadn't delivered yet anything of substance. So it was weak, I would say, my position, but I thought that this was what needs to be done. And it happened that the crisis found me in a position and I had to rise to the occasion, period. The world was in a mess. There was a lot of fear that the civilization and the way we know it was completely destroyed. No people, no touching, no anything. The good thing was that I felt that there's nothing to decide. There's no option. We do it.

Alan Fleischmann

And there's a film which I love, the National Geographic film, which captures the journey of Pfizer and your leadership. And what I love also in there is there's a part that actually talks about how you also spoke out in the industry, to the other companies that are in the in the biosciences. You said that we have to work together. You broke down the barriers of a very intense and competitive industry. So while you're telling your scientists, let's make the impossible possible, we have to have this vaccine this year. And tell me: how many years did they tell you it would take to get the vaccine.

Albert Bourla

The medicines, they take 10 years to make. Vaccines, medicines: eight, if you're lucky. 10 from the start to the finish. And, of course, we did it in one tenth of the time.

Alan Fleischmann

Which is pretty amazing. But at the same time, you also made some remarkable speeches in the spring of 2020, where you challenged, in essence, everyone else, to actually work together and be collaborative.

Albert Bourla

I don't want to take much credit on that because, again, I spoke to people who were willing to listen, actually, they were they were not waiting for me to tell them, a lot of them, they were already there. I was very satisfied and impressed with the way that the vast majority of the private sector enterprises in life sciences, these are, I think, the vast majority, you can debate here, and there are a few things. But overall, it was a very, very positive way that everybody handled it. And of course, we demonstrated to society the value, that a vibrant life sciences sector, private life sciences sector, brings. And why it's important to keep the conditions that can continue thriving.

Alan Fleischmann

You also made people think differently about science. We think of science very differently today than we did a year ago or two years ago. You made a big decision to pursue the mRNA vaccine. And that was a gamble, I imagine. But one obviously, that's paid dividends. Why did you feel that was the right approach to go with the mRNA? And how much of a believer should we be in mRNA vaccines going forward?

Albert Bourla

It was my decision, but was not my suggestion. They suggested that to me, the scientists of Pfizer. And we need to understand that, for Moderna, there was only one decision to be made, are we going to work for a vaccine or not? If the decision was yes, then there was only one technology. That's what they knew, they were very good in mRNA.

In our case, the decision was not only if we are going to make a vaccine, but which technology, because we were very good in basically all existing technologies. Frankly, I was thinking that, when I told them, let's work on the development of a vaccine, that they will come to me with a proposal to do an adenovirus type of technologies, like the one that AstraZeneca did, which we knew very well how to do. Or a protein, which is the novel vaccine, because we were very good in that.

But they didn't, they came and said, “Let's do it with mRNA.” And my first reaction was, “that's very counterintuitive. Are you kidding me, you want, in the middle of a crisis, to put all of our bet in technology that haven't delivered anything yet, not a single product before.” And so I sat down with them. And they were very consistent that they believed that the work that they have done in the last two years, actually, in fact, with BioNTech, but not in COVID-19 in flu. They were working together in the flu vaccine. They knew that they had brought the technology to the level to a level of maturity that can give to our product. Doesn't mean that we will win, but I think we know how to do it now with that.

So that was their pitch. And then I said okay, so let's say that you can do it as you can do it with adenovirus or with others. Why go with mRNA that clearly has a little bit more risks? According to me, a lot more risk, but according to you a little bit more risk? And then we'll discuss the benefits that if we get it right, that it could have. We were not certain about the level of efficacy we were going to be able to achieve, but we were certain that this technology, if you need a booster, you can certainly do it. Which was very wise, because you see how many boosters right now we need to do. The other technologies are not very easy to give it twice or three times. Very difficult. The new responses goes down — you need to get it right with the first, maybe second.

And the the other one was, if there are many variants that will occur, we may have to change the vaccine. And the mRNA technology is very complicated so that you can set it up for manufacturing and research. But once you set it up, it's a plug and play. So if you have a new variant, you can just take the DNA of the new variant, make it the RNA and insert it in the same vaccine, just a small part of the vaccine which is the part that carries the information of the RNA. I’m very happy that we did that, because you see now what is the situation with variants. Even if a variant comes, with this technology you can have any vaccine in 1/3 of the time that you need for the other technologies for the way that I described.

With all of that, when we analyzed it, it made me to say, “Okay, mRNA it is.” And I made a decision, but they were passionate. I challenged their proposal, but they defended it and they defended it very well.

Alan Fleischmann

You trusted your team and you went for it, you took a lot of risk. But you couldn't have imagined, at the time, the results. I mean, that it was going to have such an efficacy. Because I don't think there was any precedence to having that kind of efficacy at the end.

Albert Bourla

There are vaccines that they have provided very high efficacy. But for a very, very, very few. And that's the maximum you can get. And clearly, they were not made in eight months. The FDA had set the bar that a vaccine will be registered if it has a 50% efficacy. And then when we designed our studies, we said ourselves that we should think bigger, so should go for a 60% efficacy. So we powered our studies to be able to detect a 60% efficacy, which means that, if it was lower, we may not be able to have the statistical significance so that we could demonstrate to the world. So it was really worth taking also a risk by placing the bar higher. And then it came and I was hopping in my wildest dreams of 70%. But when it came 96%, it was very, very much like a miracle.

Alan Fleischmann

So there's this wonderful scene in the National Geographic film, but also in your book, where you talk about that moment when you learned. And I want people to remember that, because it's almost now that you’ve raised the bar so high. It goes back to your quote that you were talking about before, that we expect science to win now, which is amazing. We should. And we have a lot of faith in science, because of Pfizer's work in many ways. But the idea that you hit that pinnacle number, we should never forget how risky that was to get there and how unsure it was to get there in that moment.

I’m really struck by two things. One, how genuinely surprised and thrilled you and the team around you were. But also how close the team was as well, which just goes back to another leadership principle: you have the right mission, you have to have the right team, but they do have to come together. That must have been a very exhilarating moment.

Albert Bourla

Yeah, it was.

Alan Fleischmann

It still is. But it's a very powerful moment for those of us who want to believe that science wins. Are there anxieties or tensions during that period that you actually pulled from principles in your life that helped you deal with them? How did you deal with stress? I know you, like everybody else, were isolated at home leading a major effort globally. You had your family around you, but you didn't have the access of having your colleagues down the hall. How did you deal with managing that stress? Because you were on Zoom calls and phone calls from morning to night?

Albert Bourla

Yes, it was for me, in the middle of all this darkness, a blessing that my kids were home. I'm sure they don't feel the same way. But for me, it was a real blessing. And I had them and then we started doing what many families eventually started re-doing, I heard, which was having dinner all together. Which we were not before because the main thing why you don't have dinner all together is because people are coming in and out of the house at different times. Even If they live together, now, nobody was going anywhere. So it was very easy to schedule it. But that small difference in the relationship, I think. We started enjoying so much sitting together at the table, cooking all together. Things that we forgot how they used to be. Right, amazing. And then of course, it was a lot of stress. Clearly, I was not trying to deal with my stress by reading Greek or German philosophers. I was mostly watching Netflix. This is how I was able to travel, through the movie in a different place. Even if it was just for an hour or two.

Alan Fleischmann

You escaped, but you live the life that we all were living. The only difference was that you had a little bit more of an urgency of your day job than most other people had during that time. But it's amazing. Also, I love what you said about family. It's true with me and my daughters too. We actually had dinner for the first time — teenagers don't want to have dinner with you every night. But all of a sudden they were forced to and it really did create that kind of home environment.

Albert Bourla

Well they can’t leave!

Alan Fleischmann

What, “I’m not going anywhere!” Exactly. There's a wonderful foreword in the book Moonshot by President Jimmy Carter. And he's comparing Pfizer's work of the vaccine with a lot of the other work that they've been involved in at the Carter Center in eradicating the guinea worm. Are there other moonshots that Pfizer is involved in, are there other moonshots ahead of us? I know you think bold and you want to deliver. Are there other moonshots that you imagine with mRNA and other technologies that we should be optimistic about in addition to the vaccine?

Albert Bourla

Oh, yes, there are. We are involved in several of them. And, sadly, not all of them will see the light of life. But I'm sure that some will. We are trying to think big. And you know, when you're so successful, you're somehow a victim of a syndrome that is forcing you to do better. Because you can’t stay at the top for too long. Either you jump to a higher height, or you go down. But you can’t stay where you are. So it's not a position that you can enjoy for long. And clearly going downward will hurt.

Keep in mind, 2021 was such a tremendous year for Pfizer by all ways and means. Our reputation to the world was not only the highest ever, but it was the highest among almost everyone from being a company that was not liked, really, to a company that is now loved. That was a tremendous success. The engagement of our people, we were very lucky to have good people and they like the company. But nothing like the engagement that we saw after what we were able to achieve in 2021. When we run the surveys, 55,000 people participated in them, and over 96% are very, very proud to be with Pfizer. So that's a very high benchmark. Our sales were higher and profits were higher than anybody else. Our influence to the world was higher than anyone else. And our stock price was higher than ever. So it’s very difficult to have a year where you can accomplish all of that again, once more. And I am concerned because I don't want to have a year that will be lesser than the previous one. So you can only do it with some other moonshot. So we are working on a lot of them.

Alan Fleischmann

Which is so sad because we have so many more believers now that science can win because of Pfizer. So the idea that you want to create more moonshots is actually important. When I think of your leadership, I think if you as being very humble. Which is what I believe is in the DNA of your company and the people you have on your leadership team are similar in that way. But being confident and bold, which is the moonshot — having gratitude, you seem very grateful every day to do the kind of work that you do — when I think of lessons learned for the listeners on the show, they come to the show to listen to people like you, because they want to get lessons learned and understand. And one of the lessons I think of when I think of you is never get far away from your gratitude. You seem to be a very grateful leader. I'm just curious, does that keep you humble?

Albert Bourla

I try to be who I am. This is how I grew up. I think it is important for a leader to be seen like that. But it's very difficult to fake it. And I think I am what you say.

Alan Fleischmann

What advice would you give to other CEOs or aspiring CEOs who are taking on new companies and new responsibilities? Are there certain principles that you live by that you would want to share?

Albert Bourla

I think the first is what was the “aha moment” for me when I became CEO, that the buck stops here is something that will you will face almost immediately. And you can never be prepared for that. So you just need to go through it and be able to be successful.

The second is the learnings of how we are able to do all of these things. People, they tend to have a severe tendency to underestimate what they think they can do. It's natural. And they are always trying, it's like small kids, they are trying to see their boundaries, they will push and then once the parents set the boundaries, then they stay within them. It is more or less the same when you set very big goals. People, they will try to see the negative, the risks, and they will come to try to tell you that we need to reduce the risk. “That's not reasonable. That's insane. We will fail. Don't do it.” You will be surprised how much they can do if you don't relax the target. If you tell him it is what it is, go and find a solution. They may not do it exactly. But they will do 10 times more than what you thought they would. So that's a very big lesson for me. And I'm setting it in hope that others can try.

Alan Fleischmann

You were named, just this year, the Genesis Prize Laureate in recognition for your leadership in the pandemic. You were named by CNN Business as the CEO of the Year. You've gotten many awards now recognizing your leadership. And each and every time you're awarded these things, you, in essence, immediately dedicate them to the men and women of Pfizer who work with you every day. I heard you say that that's what drew drew you to write the book, that you weren't the guy who was an author. You said, I have to write this book for them. Is that right?

Albert Bourla

Okay, so I feel really bad. It was It is a tsunami of recognition that came, but they all came to me because I'm the face of Pfizer. And sometimes I started feeling bad because there were so many that work so hard to make that happen. And it is not only that they work hard, it was because of their genius that we made it — it's not only that they work hard and that someone else has got the smart ideas. They had the smart ideas, they were the geniuses in solving this tremendous, tremendous problem. And that's the reason why every time I take something, I say “look, I take it on behalf of all these thousands of people.” Because I feel bad just taking it myself.

Now the reason for the book. That was one very important reason, what you just said. The other one was that it's clear that what happened during that period will remain in history. It's changed the course of history, it’s changed the course of the world, and will remain a science. So I wanted to leave behind the record of how I saw things. You know, history is written by very different views. If you sit on the left, you have very different views than if you're sitting on the right as the history parades in front of you. So I just wanted to make sure that I left the record of of how things happen from my perspective, and also to leave a record of what others did. That’s why, in the book, it's all about who did what. So and again, I have omitted so many. And I wrote for a lot of people and what they did, clearly the top players. I think at least I paid a little bit of justice also to make sure that their contributions will become in more details known, and also remain in history.

Alan Fleischmann

That's very powerful. The book is part memoir. It's certainly about the journey and the challenge of making the impossible possible with a vaccine. And it also is a fabulous book on business principles that allowed you, with that humility and confidence, lead the way you do and continue to do.

I'm just curious, you've done many interviews, I've watched you in so many. And is there a question that no one has ever asked you, Albert, that you've always wondered why they never asked you that you would love them to ask? I'd love to, as we wrap this up, I'm going to ask you that. Is there one question that you wish someone would have asked you along the way that they haven't asked yet?

Albert Bourla

There's so many, that virtually, they have covered everything. And mostly I'm thinking, what to avoid, not what I want to be asked. No, I don't have anything to say.

Alan Fleischmann

Well I will say, the one observation I have for you, is you are so serious and purposeful. And you are challenging to anybody that's in your vicinity. But you also love joy, you like to celebrate, you have a great sense of humor. And part of the observation I guess I would share with the listeners here is no matter how serious and purposeful your life is, take on the big ambitions like you're describing. But don't forget to enjoy the journey. Because I do think that you celebrate your colleagues and you do laugh and you do remind people that we're human beings, and I think that probably is a lesson for others as well.

Albert Bourla

Oh, it's a new word, joy, that replaces the old word, party, but I like it.

Alan Fleischmann

Yeah, I like it too. Well, you're listening to “Leadership Matters” on SiriusXM. And on leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. And we've had the last hour with a remarkable leader, the chief executive officer and chairman of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, Dr. Albert Bourla. Albert, thank you for all that you do and continue to do. We're grateful for the last moonshot. And we'll be on the journey with you for the next. But thank you for joining us today.

Albert Bourla

Thank you very much.