← In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen
In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen
Pfizer CEO: Transforming Drug Discovery, Lessons from China and Leading with Optimism
00:48:01
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- [00:01]
A
Hi everyone and welcome to In Good Company. I'm Nicolai Tangen, the head of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. And today I'm in particularly good company because I'm here with Albert Bourla, who is the chairman and CEO of Pfizer, one of the largest pharma companies in the world. Now Albert, he has been with Pfizer for 30 years, been CEO since 2019, and has led the company through a remarkable period of change. Warm welcome.
- [00:24]
B
Thank you very much. And you know, I'm with Pfizer 33 years.
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A
33 years.
- [00:27]
B
I'm with my wife. 30.
- [00:29]
A
All right. I got it mixed up there. Yes. Now a lot of stuff has happened since you took over as CEO. What are you most excited about just now?
- [00:47]
B
I think I'm always excited by the Future. Like all CEOs, right, they see the opportunities ahead and science is at the highest levels we ever had it and science is affecting our business very big time. So I'm very, very optimistic about the scientific progress that we can see in the next years. Until the end of the decade, you
- [01:11]
A
sharpened the focus on innovative medicine, sold off consumer healthcare and so on. Why did you think that was the right decision to make?
- [01:18]
B
I'm a believer that, you know, corporations role is not to hedge, it is to be very good. A few things investors role is. So I believe that requires different culture for a scientific company and different culture for a consumer company and very different culture for an off patent generic company. So I felt that we should choose to be good at what is really important and that was science.
- [01:46]
A
Now we're not going to spend much time on Covid, but we have to just touch on the fact first. You did an unbelievable job. Put a, a huge amount of your own capital in there and produce the vaccine in eight months. Just how was that possible?
- [02:01]
B
Well, you know, it was possible for several reasons. But the most important is, was exceptional times. So everybody felt that this is not business as usual. And everybody felt that the culture of society, our civilization, it's at risk. So everybody gave everything. And when I say everybody, I mean the government, I mean our people, I mean our hospitals that corroborated. So it was not easy to be done without them being aligned.
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A
Why don't we continue to work this way at full speed?
- [02:43]
B
Because we don't have this big need that is driving people's behaviors and they have the tendency to go back to the old habits. I have seen that with regulators. But after being extremely instrumental in being able to achieve what we achieve, they became back to more Conservative. I have seen that with the government operations that were opening the ways to us to be able to accomplish what we accomplished. And now they are back to the normal trend. So it's our. Unfortunately, you need a common enemy to motivate people.
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A
Absolutely. We see that in many places now. On the back of that success, you had a big pile of money and then you had to decide what to do with it. How do you decide on a thing like that?
- [03:38]
B
First of all, let me tell you that I don't think that it was only the money that came to us, that it was a very big asset. The most important, I think was that the belief in our organization that there is nothing that we can do. Our people felt so proud about what they were able to accomplish. And as a company and individuals, we were soured by awards and by recognition that make us all feel that when we put our will together, we can bend every curve. That's a very big asset. And I think that we found it extremely helpful. Once things went not good after the COVID was controlled by what we did. And as a result, the money stopped being as big as they were coming. So the fact that we had developed this resilience culture helped us a lot to pivot to something new. Now. The money were quite good and we invested it all. There were a lot of people that would have different views as to how this money needs to be invested. There were the conservative people that would say give it as a dividend. There were people that were saying buy back shares. And our shares were at 50 at that time. And there were people that were saying, it's time to invest in business. So it's a unique opportunity. You have an loe period. You need to. To make sure you do investments. I've chosen the last part. And we did a significant amount of investments, almost 80 plus billion dollars in acquisitions, three of which are 80% of the total cost. And still the jury's out. Particularly in the bigger one of them, which was Seedsen. It had products that they were in the market and over there, it's an overwhelming victory. Those products are doing tremendously well.
- [05:48]
A
We'll come back to those. But just first, that kind of confidence that you gain by achieving something like it did during COVID How long time does that confidence last?
- [05:57]
B
It was a very tough period in the year 2023. In 22, our revenues from COVID were $56 billion. Now it is 6. So it was a huge.
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A
But the confidence, I mean, the fact that people think they are superhuman.
- [06:13]
B
I'm coming to that. So when you are having such a drop of reality from the stock being the best performing to suddenly the stock being the worst performing, that puts a lot of doubts in everyone's minds and collectively and individually. That included me that I was wondering if I'm a failure just months after I was the hero of the world. But also I knew that that included many people in my organization because they perceived the stock price as an external validation of success. And when that was not there anymore, and of course not the weekly recognitions that we were receiving, they felt very bad. Still, I believe because we developed this resilience and because this memory was lasting a lot, we were able to overcome it. And in 24, we came up really as winners mentality with the confidence that we can go and win in the marketplace, we can win in business development, we can win in research. And that's what happened in 24 and 25. They were exceptional years in terms of performance. Everybody was very impressed how we are able to grow top line and beat analysts and reduce cost.
- [07:33]
A
Organizational confidence is such an interesting thing, I think. And one of my favorite movies is Kung Fu Panda. I don't know, you probably haven't seen it because it's a children's movie. But basically they're trying to figure out.
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B
I love children's movies.
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A
They're trying to figure out why this panda is so strong and, you know, what's his magic thing. And they find these magic ingredients and it's basically just a mirror he believes in himself. How do you foster organizational confidence? Self confidence?
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B
It is coming with confirmation through successes. It's very difficult to build a culture of confidence if people see only failures in front of them. You need to take it together with successes and you need to magnify because there is always in the organization pockets that they are having examples of that and pockets that they don't. And usually everybody's attention it is on what went wrong. You need to make sure that you project to the collective organization what went right as well.
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A
Let's go back to the acquisition. So you spent more than 40 billion to buy CGION. What was it that you saw there that other people didn't see?
- [08:55]
B
It was one technology, to be frank. And that technology was ADCs. It was a technology that started to become one of the hottest new things in oncology. It was not yet. At that time it became much bigger. And there were a lot of singular players here and there that they could have ADC technology. But there was only one that had four products in the market and they had 13 R&D products in the clinic.
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A
ADC being antibody drug conjugates.
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B
Antibody drug conjugate it is one of the latest and more promising ways to fight cancer.
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A
Why does it work so well?
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B
You should consider the ADCs like this, extremely precise missiles that modern warfare is using. Why they are so extremely precise? Because they have a GPS system that takes them directly to the target. And then based on what is the target, they can adjust the warhead. They can make it big, small, explosive. This is exactly how a disease works. The antibody is the GPS and it is programmed biologically to identify a location in the body and go and stick to it. And the drug, it is the warhead. But it is carried together with the antibody and when it hits the target is releasing the impact. Imagine chemotherapy that doesn't go everywhere, but goes predominantly to the cancer cells. That's the ADC technology. You can change the antibody and you can send from liver to brain to bones to stomach. You can change the payload and you can use radioactive payloads, or you can use chemotherapy, or you can use protease. You can use a lot of different weapons. But that's exactly the beauty of it that from a scientific and business perspective gives you an opportunity to have so many combinations and so many shots and goals. So that's what I really believed in that. And we did. And if the technology is proven to be deliver on, the promise is going to be one of the most successful acquisitions. If the technology doesn't deliver to what we were hoping will do, I think will be like a modest return. But I don't think we will lose money.
- [11:27]
A
So that was in oncology. Now the other area you wanted to zoom in on was obesity and you bought Matera. Why was that so important to buy? And you all beat Novo Nordisk there.
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B
Yes, we always believed that obesity is a very big area. And we always believe that Pfizer is the company that can be very competitive over there. So we enter into the obesity space way back in the day and if things wouldn't go wrong for us scientifically, because two major assets that we had in the cleaning, they suddenly saw signs of liver toxicity. So we had to discontinue them, although they were very effective. But if that was not the case, we would be the first to launch an oral product right now in the market. And things will be very, very different for all of us. But unfortunately this didn't happen. So now we are having a development organization that knows how to do primary care. Very big complicated Studies. We have a commercial organization that it is a powerhouse and knows how to sell stuff. And we have a manufacturing network that can make those stuff better and faster and cheaper than anybody else. And guess what? We didn't have a portfolio. So it was for us extremely important to cover this gap because of bad luck, of scientific bad luck with an acquisition. And that's what we did with Micera.
- [12:58]
A
Now you own it for a little while. Have your view changed?
- [13:02]
B
Not at all. Not at all. I think I'm more and more optimistic, if anything.
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A
Why are you more optimistic?
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B
Because we had the release of data post the acquisition and we knew that Imageera has a very good weekly product that we're really certain you can never be 100%, but we were 85, 90% certain that that will deliver. But we didn't have hard evidence that a monthly product could be delivered. We knew that the pharmacokinetics support something like that. We knew from phase one early data that it should work. But we needed the phase two data, which we didn't have available when we did the acquisition. The phase two came later and indeed it confirmed that we do have a monthly product. We can debate is it going to be better than lilies, worse than lilies, but it's going to be monthly lilies and Novos will be weekly. That we know now with very high level of confidence, to the degree of course, that science can provide you such. So that's why.
- [14:10]
A
Why is your clinical success rate better than competition? So I think the success rate in the industry is something like 10, 11%. You are quite a lot higher than that. Why are you so good?
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B
I think because you can have, first of all this type of success. And you're right, one in ten succeeds in the industry. Almost two in ten succeeds in our hands. So we are 18, 19% of clinical successes. And we have a very, very long history as a research organization. And actually Pfizer's research organization, it is, I believe, one of the best. I'm sure we will discuss what we have done to change the trajectory of Pfizer organization.
- [14:53]
A
But why is it one of the best?
- [14:54]
B
Because when it comes to capabilities, all the metrics indicate that we can kill it. You mentioned one of that. I can mention to you the phase two success rates that with an industry being around 25% and 30, and we were below that 15, 20 and we jumped it to 50 plus in regulatory success, we are almost at 95%. So all the metrics are showing that we are very good. But I wouldn't also say the success. Because sometimes success is because you choose to do easy things and not challenging things. Right? Not scientifically. Big project. If you see the number of breakthrough designations that we receive from fda, which is the recognition that this potential medicine, it is so good that I will put it in a fast track because if it is successful, can change the trajectory of a disease. We were among the top ones. If you see how many approvals we received, we were among the top ones. So I think we were always very, very good when it comes to capabilities.
- [16:09]
A
But you restructured last year.
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B
No, there is a big but I don't think we were perceived as very good for a good reason. Because when you measure how much we put in the system and how much we got out of the system in terms of dollars, we were mediocre, not top quartile. Because everything else that I told you, we were top quartile.
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A
So what did you change last year?
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B
What was the reason of that? It became very clear to me that we made the wrong choices into choosing which products to develop. They were not easy technically, which makes me even more angry. It was technically challenging, but we miscalculated the commercial potential of those products. There were silos between R and D and commercial that created that. It was not focused on the R and D. We were going to whatever we had as positive data. We would go and develop it. And that's the number one thing that I aim to change. The good news is that if it was a question of capabilities for us, that would mean five, six, seven years journey to be able to turn that around. If it is a question of focus with good capabilities, but wrong focus, that's a cultural, that's a governance, that's a leadership issue. You can change within months.
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A
So you got a new head of R and D. What are the other changes you made? Specifically?
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B
We have multiple heads of R and D units that they are new and they bring a different culture into the organization that I want it to be. And particularly the focus. As I said, I was not looking for a better oncologist or a better endocrinologist. I was looking for endocrinologist that can focus. I was looking for an oncologist that can focus. And that were the type of changes that we did. We put together the entire R and D organization as an end to end, which was not the case. Also before we had early and late and then later also we separated oncology. Now we had early and late under one leadership. It makes very big difference because the handovers between early and Late, when the two organizations are separate. Early means someone discovers the molecule and once he discovers, he gives it to the late organization. Late means we have clinicians that do experiments to prove that the molecule works. This handover between my baby now make sure that it is successful. It is one of the most challenging phases in drug development and discovery. And I think that's what we did quite well.
- [18:57]
A
Let's spend some time on AI. We recently you and I spent some time at the conference together where some people think that within 10 to 15 years we can get rid of all the illnesses in the world with more use of AI. Just what are your. When you hear that, what are your reflections?
- [19:18]
B
I think that it is a very bold statement that probably exaggerates to make a point, but I think still the point is valid. I think that we will see in 10, 15 years and earlier, I think by the end of this decade, in five years, tremendous, tremendous progress that it is due to AI in addition to advancements in biology. So that's the point. I don't think in 15 years all diseases will be cured, but I think that in five years we will have a very different level of standards of care.
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A
How will that change?
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B
The pharma industry will change it. Not only the pharma industry will change, the health system will change, hospitals will change physicians, how they are organized, it will change regulators, how they see products. And it will change pharma. And pharma will change in research and development because I think we can identify better targets and then synthesize better molecules and then have better clinical trial, but also in manufacturing. And it will make huge difference also in commercial approaches.
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A
Is it good news or bad news for Varma?
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B
I think it's very good news. But we need to be careful that that will be a radical change. That will be a disruption. And disruption always creates new winners and new losers. The bigger the disruption, the bigger the new.
- [20:49]
A
And how will you make sure that Pfizer is on the right side of that change?
- [20:53]
B
That's all I sleep and go to bed and wake up with. In my mind there are two things. China and AI and politics, unfortunately. And politics, unfortunately.
- [21:05]
A
Let's do AI first. Just specifically, how has it changed the way you work? Because it was instrumental in helping you with the COVID vaccine, right?
- [21:13]
B
Yeah, it was. And it was not with the vaccine that much. It was with the treatment. Paxclobid, the pill that we discovered was indeed the first machine learning molecule with such an impact, at least that I'm aware of. AI cannot do everything Right now, but can do way more than what we are using it for. That's the fundamental question I'm asking. All these models can do way more than what are used for. And the question is, so then why they are not used as much? Because right now we have reached a level that it is not a question of technology, it is a question of organizational ability to adjust and transform itself through AI. That poses a question, what is the best way to enable leaders to transform their organizations with AI? I think the first one it is that they should receive the accountability of doing it. There are two views to how to organize AI. One, it is centralized. You have visionary AI guys that they're coming and they are building your discipline in your. And then they cascade to everybody else. And there is one that is very decentralized, that says that the center is only the infrastructure, the data, the computing power, the cloud. But then the accountability, responsibility and resources to create use cases is with the units, is with manufacturing, it is with research, it is with commercial. I went to that and we discussed it a lot with Pfizer and we moved into giving accountability to our leaders to do those changes. But also they have to deliver. So they have all the obligation to deliver their transformational plans that will really move the needle, really go to something very different. So I think that's a very, very important thing.
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A
How do you close that technology overhang? I mean the fact that these models can do so much more than we are able to utilize them for.
- [23:28]
B
I think that's what I was trying maybe not successful to explain that the reason why they are not using MPT is because there is inertia, there is fear. The fear is for my job, but also there is fear because I don't understand it. There is, but what's the key?
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A
What's the key to solving this? Because it's not only in the pharmacy, it's across society, right?
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B
Yeah. The key to solve it is to understand it. So if you understand that people are scared because they don't understand it, you need to create the AI literacy.
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A
How do you do that?
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B
We train them. We are putting thousands of people into programs that they will understand how to interact with an AI model.
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A
Is it mandatory advisor to do it?
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B
We haven't done it mandatory right now because it's still. We are, let's say, I would say we are having 3,4000 people that they have gone through the programs. What we will have in Pfizer is certifications. So we will have people that could receive a certificate if they are AI. Fluent if they are AI, very good if they are AI experts. And we are working very, very intensively to develop all the specifications of what this will include. But we are moving into that very rapidly.
- [24:56]
A
What kind of classification would Albert Bourla have?
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B
You know, it's interesting. I need to go and pass the tests for all of that. I did the training that the 2,000 people did. I saw a huge difference in my ability and it was a very easy one a weekend.
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A
I think it has to be. We have it mandatory in our company because the people who need it the most are the least keen to do the training. Right. So I think it has to be mandatory. In the beginning everybody protested because nobody likes mandatory, but now they. Well, my interpretation is that they like it very good.
- [25:33]
B
It's a good learning.
- [25:37]
A
You mentioned AI and China. What is happening in China in the pharma industry?
- [25:43]
B
I think the Chinese, when they put something in their mind as top priority, they have proven that they can deliver exceptional results. So Chinese they are working with the five years plan they had. 20, 25 was the 14th five year plan from Mao Zedong's time. This is where they first time spoke that they want to develop by years 35 to 36 global players in pharmaceutical space. To do that, they said in the first years they need to develop a biotech and improve science, etc. They did tremendously well. Right now in the Nature index of ranking universities based on scientific output, out of 10, the top 10 was always eight US. The usual suspects, MIT, Harvard. In 25, only one was US, Harvard and eight were Chinese. Eight of the top 10 were Chinese in the world based on peer review publications that they had and grants and PhDs and all of that. The progress that's happening is amazing. From the early stages of drug discovery to regulations, to IP protections, to utilizing talents, encouraging investments, subsidies, they are moving with the speed of light.
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A
Is it the basic research you think which is the main reason behind this? What are the factors influenced?
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B
The factors that influence was the execution of a meticulously well thought plan. The first one was you need to have a regulator like their FDA that it is not corrupt, that it is competent, that can differentiate between garbage and diamonds when it comes to science. They did that meticulously well, they changed their FDA regulations after the repeated visits to the FDA here in the US to know how they are doing. The second is that they know that if someone invests his money to make something in biotech, the whole asset is a formula on a piece of paper. It's not the Machines, it's not the buildings, it's not the drills. To do that, you need to have very strong IP protection. They developed a very strong intellectual property protection system in China that gave confidence now to investors that regulator will be fair and is on science and objective. My patents will be protected because we have that this new law that came and they created a judiciary system that can resolve IP disputes very quickly. So if someone challenges your patent, you are not having uncertainty for 10 years.
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A
Do they have a better system than we have?
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B
Apparently they have better results than what we have.
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A
Are they ahead of us on oncology, for instance?
- [29:07]
B
They are not ahead of us yet. But when you see the curve and then you come to the conclusion that it's a question of one or two years to become better than us, and I don't think it is right now, very few things we can do to stop that.
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A
So within one or two years, China
- [29:27]
B
will be ahead of us in multiple areas. Which areas they are focusing on early right now because they can't have global clinical development teams yet and they don't have commercial development teams yet. So on the early, which is chemistry, preclinical developing of molecules, testing them, and in areas like cancer, obesity, you name it, they have, for every one thing that we have, they have 10 companies working on it. So I'm sure that on the early stage they would be very quickly better and more productive than us. Within two years, then it comes to they need to transition to being able to take those molecules and bring them to the world alone, rather than together with us. And I think that will be their step, their second step.
- [30:22]
A
But so far they do it with us and with you. Right. So you did a deal with 3S Bio, which is a Chinese biotech company.
- [30:31]
B
Yes, we are trying to tap into the Chinese innovation. So there are a lot of things that they are developing. We are looking at them and when we find something good, we license it. But for me this is not a long term strategy. First of all, they want give their molecules forever to others. They will develop their capabilities to take them all the way to the market so that they can profit from the whole chain of value. But my focus is how to become better than them. Because right now they bring a very different league. They are doing everything with half the cost and three times the speed. If you compare Pfizer and Lilly and AstraZeneca and one is better in something, the other is better in something else. But in general we are all within a range of same, let's say productivity levels R and D maybe one is better commercial, maybe one is better. They come, as I said, half the cost, three times the speed. That's a very different league. You need to transform your companies and you have five years to do it so that you will be able to compete in a world that they come like they did with electric vehicles, like they did with solar panels, like they did with batteries, they will do with medicines.
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A
And how is Pfizer going to halve the costs and increase the speed by 300%?
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B
Yeah, the best answer, or the simple answer is through transformation through technology. I think it's a good thing to say, you know, I'm going to transform myself. But it's not that you were stupid before, it was that you didn't have technology that will allow you to do things very, very different than you're doing them right now. Now we have with AI. So transformation through technology, it is pretty much number one. Culture, leadership, focus, all of these are extremely important as well. But now it's high time to change the way we do things.
- [32:43]
A
What can regulators and society do other if you were to change three things that would make your life easier.
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B
I'll tell you what the US should do. Should stop trying with all the heart and brains that they have to put 80% of their effort how to slow down China. Very big mistake because we'll. It's a waste of resources and brain power because you will never slow them down. The Zin is out of the bottle. We should put 80% of our focus and effort how to become better than China. And for that I know what Pfizer needs to do and I know what the US government could do to help us. Such as I have a very comprehensive plan that covers from regulatory changes, covers from NIH funding, covers from universities and how they operate, covers from drug pricing. Because all this debate about drug pricing drove 2025 to be the lowest multiple in the history of the industry and the lowest available fund for biotech. So without changing those things, we won't have enough investments there. China it is scale, speed, cost and scale we should not underestimate. They are putting a lot of money out there. And in our case, we are holding money from this sphere because investors, they don't feel confident that those products will sell in prices that will give them return on investment.
- [34:25]
A
But let's move on to leadership. Why are you a good leader?
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B
I'm not sure if I'm a good leader, but I'm a leader that changes every year. I'm a leader that learns. And one of the key Characteristics of a good manager. It is that time works on him, like in wine, so makes him better. The moment that I feel that the end of the year, I was exactly the same as it was in the beginning of the year, I think it would be time for me to go and retire.
- [34:56]
A
So Parker rates the wines from 1 to 20. So how do you. What kind of wine rating do you give yourself?
- [35:04]
B
Yes, I would say that one of
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A
the 20 is the highest, by the
- [35:08]
B
way, one of the good to know one of the key characteristics of a leader is humility. So it would be a very bad demonstration of judgment. Trying to say, but I'll tell you something, that I am judged by my people every six months. In Pfizer, we have a system that everybody is. Getting a score every six months about specific leadership traits. Like, is he creating a good environment, Is he thinking big, Is he making decisions fast, Is he changing his decisions, is he focusing the organization? Very specific questions. The same for years now. 19. I put that system in place when I became CEO. And who tells if you are a good leader or not? It was the reverse of before. Before we have our score for leadership that the supervisors will say, he's good, he's not good, he's bad. We did the exact opposite. Now, the people that are working for you will tell if you are good or you are bad. And the people that are working with you, the peers. So imagine a Pfizer, let's say, span of control of 10 means that every person will get 10 people that report to him and 10 people that they are in the same team with him, tell every six months how he's doing in being decisive.
- [36:32]
A
For example, what are the parameters where you are trying to improve yourself?
- [36:38]
B
I know very well because I'm part of this and I'm getting all the. All the feedback. It's very consistent.
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A
What did they tell you?
- [36:46]
B
I'm Mediterranean. I am more passionate.
- [36:49]
A
Yeah, I got a hug from you when you came in here. It was nice.
- [36:52]
B
You know, if you get a hug, people appreciate. If you get a shout, all right. Or Yale, then they don't appreciate. And many times I do that. So I'm. Now, if you compare me to how I was 10 years ago when I was younger and more dynamic, I have significant improvement and 20 years, even more. But so what?
- [37:16]
A
So I'm sorry, but so which. So which part are you. So which part are you trying to improve?
- [37:22]
B
To be less passionate when I express my opinion. Because the higher you are, you can shut down people. So to create an environment that Everybody will speak. Because if I let it, for example, when I have meetings, I'm not asking what people think. I go, what do you think? What do you think? All people. I call it a round. Many times I say, okay, let's have a round. When the debate is in a position that you know things are not concluding somewhere, I said, let's do a round.
- [37:57]
A
Where do you score highest? What is your super strength as a leader?
- [38:01]
B
Think big. I'm getting very, very good scores. Measured outcomes. I'm getting very scores decisive. I'm getting very good scores. Speak up. I'm getting very good scores.
- [38:18]
A
No, it's very clear that you take no bullshit. I like it. It's good. How has your leadership style developed over years?
- [38:29]
B
I developed more the softest parts of the managerial skills. And also I developed a lot my big admiration of culture. I believe that in a company you need the right structure and then you need the right strategy and you need the right leadership and the right culture. But the areas that most of the companies are spending most time discussing it is the organizational structure, which is important. But it is the fourth important, because it's even more important to have the right strategy. If you don't have the right strategy, no matter how you organize, you are in the organization will not be successful. But even more important, the strategy is to have the right leaders. Because the right leaders, and I'm sure you know that better than anybody else, can take a mediocre strategy and make it brilliant. And bad leaders can take a brilliant strategy and deliver nothing of it. So leadership is probably one of the top. There is only one thing that it is better and more impactful than leadership. And this is culture. And you know why? Because at organizational level, you can have all the people in this organization of thousands of people to be triple A players. You will have the A and the A and the A minus and the B and the Cs. But if you have the right culture, the right culture uplifts everyone up. The C's are becoming C, the B's are becoming B and the A's are becoming AAA's. So I'm a big believer that culture, its strategy for lunch.
- [40:16]
A
How is your COPA culture impacted by the fact that you are basically situated in Manhattan? And I think you started in Brooklyn, right?
- [40:24]
B
I think it's very much so. Pfizer was founded in Brooklyn 177 years ago, never left the city, came to Manhattan 30, 40 years. We are more than 100 plus years in Manhattan. Manhattan is a very unique place, multicultural, Big Apple Extremely competitive because it is the Wall street and the banks and the lawyers, they are the most competitive people on earth. So that created a culture in Pfizer that's irrelevant if you are sitting in Istanbul or in Islamabad or in Paris or in Berlin. The Pfizer culture is very competitive.
- [41:07]
A
So let's say now I join Pfizer. If I'm lucky enough to get a job there, I worked for a little while, how do I feel that kind of, wow, Brooklyn is still part of this. And this is a bit like Wolf or Wall street type environment.
- [41:20]
B
People that are joining Pfizer, they are telling me that they found the company moving very, very fast. And they wouldn't. If they are joining from biotechs, they would say that we wouldn't expect that you will move faster or equal than a biotech. If they are moving from another company, they said we didn't expect that the corporation can move that fast. That's the speed. It is the Wall Street. They also tell me that, wow, very competitive. So people really care to win. It's not okay to lose. That's something that you need to be very careful in a company. Because this competitiveness, if it is used how one can stump the other, is very bad. The whole organization will go to hell. But if this competitiveness is used to say that I'm going to be the first one to bring a COVID vaccine in the market, this is what gives you the drive. So I'm planning meticulously how to be able to instill that second one, that it is about winning for the patients, winning for the research programs. And to do that, we need to work all together rather than to create individualism.
- [42:31]
A
And where does your drive come from?
- [42:33]
B
My drive comes from probably my younger age. I think most people develop those traits when they are kids all the way to maybe college.
- [42:44]
A
And if you were to be a bit of a kind of a shrinker on yourself and look at where it came from.
- [42:51]
B
My mom, my mom was.
- [42:54]
A
Tell me about your mom.
- [42:57]
B
My mom was a Holocaust survivor. So she was in hiding. She was a teenager. She was arrested. She was abused. Physically, sexually, anything you can remember. She was put in front of a firing squad. And the last moment a BMW motorbike came and removed her and another one from the line. That was because a Christian relative paid everything that they had in bribes to Germans at that time to spare her life. So she talked a lot about her experiences in captivity and she never talked to me with a spirit of they did that to us. She never spoke about hate I never saw her hate Germans or Nazis or whatever, Never, ever ignoring them. They were irrelevant. For her, what she was mostly focusing was celebration of life, that everything is possible. There is nothing you can do in life. I was in front of a firing squad and I was fired. I remember when I would go to her as a child and complain that I can't do my homework because it's too big. Or someone told me something in school and I don't know, I don't want to go tomorrow. I can see her waving her finger in front of me saying, don't tell me you can't do it. I survived the firing squad. Go and do it. That was my mom. And she made me be very optimistic. She made me look not from what went wrong, not what was the reason, but from what went wrong. What was the opportunity that came up. And in her mind, her opportunity was that she had me and my sister. That was the miracle of life.
- [45:04]
A
Well, thank you for sharing that and tying that into the beginning. You said that a CEO needs to be optimistic. Just how optimistic does a CEO need to be? And where is that at some stage you become utopian and a bit kind of too much? No.
- [45:19]
B
Yeah, I'm a big believer in that. I think that no one follows a pessimist. And if there is one thing that is not negotiable for a CEO, it is that he has followers. If you can have the people, yes, let's go with him. You can be a CEO. Now, the truth is that pessimists are usually right, but there is nothing great that has happened in humanity without an optimist behind it. Nothing. You won't find a single thing that the pessimists were able to crack the nut and bring the new medicine or the electricity or the nuclear power, whatever. So it is important that the CEO, the leader, is optimist and focused on the opportunities. It is important that he has people around him that create a diversity of views, including very pessimistic views, because you need to do whatever you do with your eyes wide open. And clearly it's not my talent necessarily to find what can go wrong because of that as much as some of the other people that I have in my team. But it is my talent to see what we can do by combining those two things. And I need people that execute underneath to do that.
- [46:44]
A
Against that backdrop, what is your advice to young people?
- [46:48]
B
You know, my advice to young people, it is be yourselves. One of the things that you can't change, it is who you are. I mean, you can improve at the margins but you can change basically psychological traits or very difficult to change them. So be yourself. Authenticity is number one. And if I would give an advice to young people never try a field that you really don't have a great passion about.
- [47:17]
A
It
- [47:21]
B
is not a condition that will necessarily make you successful if you have a passion. I have seen a lot of people that they have passion for what they do and and they were not successful but I have never seen someone who is successful who is not passionate with what she or he is doing. So if you aim for the top don't choose what your boss is telling you or what your mom is telling you. Choose what you love to do.
- [47:45]
A
Yeah, well it's very clear that you do what you love. Your passion and optimism is coming through very clearly. It's been extraordinary to talk to you. Thank you so much.
- [47:53]
B
Oh thank you very, very much.
- [47:56]
A
It.