After leading Pfizer through the frantic race to develop the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine, CEO Albert Bourla has set his sights on a new, arguably more difficult moonshot. “We saved the world from Covid, now we’ll save the world from cancer,” Bourla told Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell, outlining the company’s massive pivot toward oncology following the pandemic.
This ambition is backed by a historic reallocation of capital. Pfizer reinvested its pandemic-era windfalls into a $23 billion spending spree in 2023, targeting new business development opportunities to secure the company’s future.
In an appearance on Fortune‘s Titans and Disruptors of Industry video podcast, Bourla talked about the triumphs and challenges of navigating the pharmaceutical giant through the pandemic and what is shaping up afterward. Describing 2023 as a “very difficult period for me,” Bourla told Shontell that he believes “the winners in life are differentiated from the losers in life because the winners never fall. The winners always stand up again.”
The post-Covid reality
The urgency behind this pivot is driven by financial necessity, Bourla said. While the pandemic rocketed Pfizer to record heights—reaching $100 billion in sales with COVID-related revenues hitting $56 billion in 2022—the decline was precipitous. By 2023, COVID-related revenues had plummeted to approximately $12 billion, significantly impacting the company’s stock price.
