{"id":888173,"date":"2026-01-27T22:13:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/pfizers-ceo-on-leading-after-a-moonshot-and-making-deals-with-trump\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T22:13:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:13:44","slug":"pfizers-ceo-on-leading-after-a-moonshot-and-making-deals-with-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/pfizers-ceo-on-leading-after-a-moonshot-and-making-deals-with-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Pfizer\u2019s CEO on leading after a moonshot\u2014and making deals with Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning.<\/strong> What happens to an organization after it achieves a moonshot? <\/p>\n

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That has been Albert Bourla\u2019s reality, post-COVID.<\/p>\n

As the CEO of Pfizer, a company he first joined in 1993, Bourla\u2014a veterinarian by training\u2014led the company through the pandemic. His team worked around the clock to deliver products to combat the crisis\u2014Pfizer collaborated with startup BioNTech<\/a> to bring the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine to market; it also introduced Paxlovid, the first antiviral medicine customized to fight COVID. Business soared to record revenue.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to today, and Pfizer has a new set of challenges. It is facing a patent cliff for some of its most lucrative drugs, and the COVID bump that lifted its revenues is over. In 2022, Bourla says, COVID-related revenue soared to more than $56 billion. Today, that revenue sits at around $5 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the top of the hill, you are the best company,\u201d Bourla told me during a recent episode of my vodcast, Fortune 500: Titans and Disruptors<\/em>. \u201cYou are named the best CEO. The people at Pfizer are the most proud employees in the world. Suddenly, to have a financial drop, it hurts a lot, and that creates emotional reactions for everyone in the company, including me.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Bourla has positioned the company to undertake new moonshots: Pfizer aims to capitalize on other revolutionary drugs like GLP-1s, and turn cancer into a disease that can be, if not always eradicated, then lived with. Bourla, who was raised by a mother who was both a Holocaust survivor and an eternal optimist, remains determined:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI do believe that the winners in life are not differentiated from the losers in life because the winners never fall,\u201d he says. \u201cThey are differentiated because the winners always stand up again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are a few of the leadership lessons I took away from our conversation (read the full transcript here<\/a>):<\/p>\n