As CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla emerged on the global stage during the COVID pandemic, leading the vaccine-maker to new heights while becoming a prominent voice for the scientific community. The years that followed have been more challenging. The pharmaceutical giant has sought out new avenues of success with cancer-treatment drugs and to catch up with its competitors, which have dominated the market for weight-loss medications.
Bourla spoke with TIME recently at his New York City HQ. You're turning 65 this year. How many more years do you think you'll be leading Pfizer?
Every December I take a glass of wine and then I reflect on how I was when I started the year, how I am as a personality, what have I learned, what have I changed in my life. December I realize that I'm the same as January will be the December I make the decision to go. Coming out of COVID was a big comedown for Pfizer’s business.
You’ve said that impacted you psychologically. 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. 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?
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