On March 19, 2020, six days after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic, the CEO of Pfizer challenged his employees to develop a vaccine within six months and, at the latest, by the end of the year. Most scoffed at the absurd timeline given them by Dr. Albert Bourla. Until then, the fastest vaccine development in history had taken four years. But almost miraculously, less than eight months later, Pfizer’s vaccine had been approved and, within weeks, 46 million doses released.
In his new book, Moonshot: Inside Pfizer's Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible, Dr. Bourla explains the behind-the-scenes story of that extraordinary scientific and logistical accomplishment and of the men and women who made the impossible possible.
He joins us to talk about the intensive search for a vaccine that could stop a global catastrophe, the creativity unleashed by the challenge to think outside the box and the power of focusing on the seemingly impossible.
Born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece, to Sephardic parents who were among just 2,000 of the city’s 50,000 Jews to survive the Holocaust, Dr. Bourla, joined Pfizer in 1993 as technical director of the company's animal health division in Greece. He immigrated to the United States in 2001 and became Pfizer’s CEO in 2019.