Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla Helped Save The World. Can He Save His Company’s Stock?

📆 2021-03-23 5:10 AM
📰 Forbes

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Delivering a game-changing vaccine was a sprint. Bourla says delivering returns for Pfizer shareholders is a marathon.

President Joe Biden listens as Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla speaks at a Pfizer manufacturing site, Friday, Feb. 19, 2021, in Portage, Mich. he one-year anniversary of the pandemic was a whirlwind for the chief executive officer who has become defined by it. Pfizer’s Albert Bourla conducted several media interviews on Thursday—everything from CNBC and “Morning Joe” to his first television appearance in Israel, the small country where Pfizer is conducting a massive experiment of its Covid-19 vaccine.

Bourla and Pfizer have received accolades from around the world for what they accomplished—supplying a game-changing vaccine to the nightmare virus in less than one year. President Joe Biden recently visited Pfizer’s manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Mich., just to give thanks to the company that developed the first Covid-19 vaccine authorized by the Food and Drug Administration.

It’s glaring that Moderna has become a stock market darling. The small biotechnology company that developed the second Covid-19 vaccine approved in the U.S., using the same cutting-edge technology as Pfizer’s vaccine, has seen its stock soar by 529% in the pandemic. With the Covid-19 vaccine its only commercial product, Moderna’s $56 billion market capitalization is now nearly a third the size of giant Pfizer’s valuation.

Stock market investors, of course, are not only group to whom Bourla needs to pay close attention to these days. With the vaccine, he has taken on a huge responsibility and it’s not easy to manage. The politics of manufacturing and distributing the Pfizer vaccine has been fraught with tradeoffs and Bourla hears from leaders of countries who feel they are not getting their doses fast enough.

So far, the Covid-19 vaccine has not helped Bourla in this area. Pfizer could end up generating more than $15 billion of revenue in 2021 from the vaccine and maybe $4 billion of profits. But stock market traders don’t care too much about these numbers, even though they are among the biggest ever generated by a biopharma product in a single year, because Wall Street doesn’t expect this financial performance will be repeatable.

Nevertheless, what Bourla is counting on to be repeatable is the speed, focus and agility that the company brought to the virus vaccine effort. If the pandemic was a test of the new Pfizer, the company passed with flying colors. There are also other reasons to be optimistic. The company’s Vyndaqel and Vynamax brands, used to treat a rare condition leading to heart failure, saw sales grow 170% to $1.3 billion last year and hold much promise.

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