To be the CEO of a large pharmaceutical company as a worldwide pandemic broke out and have to develop, test and manufacture a vaccine "was tremendous pressure," Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla says.
"I could feel it every day... billions of people were putting their hopes on us," Bourla said during a Monday conversation with Julie Hyman of Yahoo Finance at South by Southwest in Austin.
Bourla talked about his book, "Moonshot: Inside Pfizer's Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible.”
Pfizer rolled out a worldwide vaccine testing program that enrolled 46,000 people that summer, submitted results in November and became received the first vaccine emergency use authorization from the FDA by December 2020. Moderna’s authorization came a week later. Johnson& Johnson’s followed in March 2021.
The Pfizer vaccine has since been approved for ages 16 and older, and has emergency authorization for ages 5 to 15. It is working on a vaccine for the 4 and younger group.
"If you fail, it is not just about you, it is not about the company, it is about the world," he said. He had to have the resiliency to "just do it," he said.
While bringing the vaccine to market, he said, "we had disappointments every day."
Every little piece had to work from creating the vaccine, to testing it, to being able to manufacturer it.
"Some of the negatives were so negative ... if we didn't find the solution, the project was dead," Bourla said.
But he never felt like they were going to give up, he said....
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