President Joe Biden listens as Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla speaks at a Pfizer manufacturing site, Friday, Feb. 19, 2021, in Portage, Mich. The 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.
“I came here because I want the American people to understand the extraordinary work that is being done to undertake the most difficult operational challenge this nation has ever faced,” Biden said while standing on a stage next to Bourla. When Bourla is feeling down about the issue, he recalls the words of Ian Read, the Pfizer CEO who preceded him, who would tell Bourla that delivering for stock holders was a marathon and not a sprint. Developing the vaccine has been a sprint and Bourla is convinced investors will soon figure out that Pfizer’s stock is undervalued.
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.