Behind the scenes of the Pfizer vaccine

In the New York laboratories of the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, the president and CEO, Dr. Albert Bourla, showed correspondent Alina Cho where scientists are working on the next generation of vaccines against VOCID, testing samples of vaccinated cells and not vaccinated against new variants. These are the same labs where they helped pioneer the original vaccine.

Think of two years ago, when COVID-19 spread around the world, when the normal timeframe for developing a vaccine was eight to ten years. “You went to your team and said, ‘Get one in eight months,'” Cho said. “Did you honestly think you could do it?”

“I felt we had no choice but to fail,” Bourla replied.

And it was only eight months later that Pfizer executives, in partnership with BioNTech, celebrated promising results for the vaccine. with an efficiency of more than 90 percent.

Just one month later: the first shots were fired. At the same time, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and other companies were making their own vaccines.

Bourla helped direct vaccine shipments around the world from his home desk. “I spent most of my time here, in fact, during the pandemic,” he laughed.

“That’s where you got a lot of your calls, right? From a lot of world leaders?”

“This is true.”

“Like, who called you?”

“Everyone.”

There was a world leader who thought the vaccine was not coming soon enough. The results of the Pfizer vaccine were made public on November 9, 2020, six days after election day and the loss of President Donald Trump’s re-election. “He made it very clear to the world that he wanted the vaccine to arrive before the election,” Bourla said. “The vaccine finally came after the election. I think that’s what frustrated him. He didn’t call to thank me or congratulate me, but he didn’t call to complain either. He just didn’t call.”

This, of course, was only one chapter in the politicization of the pandemic. Vaccination remains high. Less than a third of all Americans are fully vaccinated and empowered, far behind many other rich countries.

Bourla has a new book on challenges: “Moonshot: Inside Pfizer’s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible” (Harper Business). In it he writes, “What if we had made such advances only to discover that the public would reject the shot for lack of confidence in industry, business, or science itself?”

Cho asked, “So, somehow, do you think that’s what happened?”

“I think, to a very high degree, it happened,” he said.

“Doesn’t that bother you personally? You’ve worked hard to get this vaccine to market safely. Don’t you mind?”

“It doesn’t bother me. What makes me feel very sad. Beyond sad. Because I know the consequences of these people’s way of thinking. And a lot of them are suffering those consequences and they’re dying.”

Politics has become personal for Bourla. He has been the target of death threats. At one point, a fake online report appeared that had forced his wife to get vaccinated and had actually killed him.

He said, “The first thing I thought was, ‘I need to call my kids and I need to call their parents, to make sure they don’t read it before I tell them your daughter or mother is still alive.’ It was very, very annoying. “

Bourla said he believes “vaccine equity” is a high priority: making sure everyone has equal access to vaccinations. Pfizer charged the full price to the rich nations, but sold at the price of the poorest countries. However, the fairness of vaccines seems far-fetched.

A recent report by Amnesty International states that only four percent of people living in low-income countries are fully vaccinated.

“That’s terrible,” Bourla said. “And I think we could have done better if we had vaccination centers, and especially to convince people in those countries that they should get the vaccine.”

Bourla believes that the annual VOCID vaccine vaccines are in our future, as are the flu vaccines, and a vaccine for the whole 6 months to 5 years could be approved in the coming months.

After two years of pandemic, Bourla is optimistic that a better future could be just around the corner.

Cho asked, “Can you imagine a world where we can take off our masks forever?”

“Oh, yes. I think so. And I think it will be this year,” he replied. “Take the vaccines and we should be able to live our lives.”

For more information:

• “Moonshot: Inside Pfizer’s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible” by Dr. Albert Bourla (Harper Business), in hardcover, e-book, and audio formats, available March 8 via Amazon and Indiebound
• Pfizer

Story produced by Alan Golds. Editor: Karen Brenner.

In:
• covid-19 vaccine
• Pfizer
• vaccine