back to indexAlbert Bourla: Pfizer CEO | Lex Fridman Podcast #249
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The following is a conversation with Albert Burla, CEO of Pfizer.
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If you'd like to skip ahead to our conversation, the timestamps as always are below.
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But if not, please allow me to say a few words about truth and human nature.
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Specifically, about two groups of people throughout history that seek to lay claim to the truth.
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The first group will tell you that only they possess the truth,
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that the government will save you, the company will save you, the science, the authorities, the experts, the institutions will save you.
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The second group, too, will tell you that only they possess the truth,
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that the government will hurt you, the company will hurt you,
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the science, the authorities, the experts, the institutions will hurt you.
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Both groups have the benevolent and the malevolent, their heroes and their charlatans.
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And I think the hard truth is that no one in this world can tell you with absolute certainty which is which.
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You have to use your mind.
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This is the burden of being human, of being free.
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Don't blindly follow any leader, neither the emperor nor the martyr who points out that the emperor has no clothes.
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And then there's the lessons of history.
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Vaccines have saved hundreds of millions of lives in the past century.
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And in general, the advance of medicine has saved billions of lives.
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If you ignore the power of science, you're not being honest with the lessons of history.
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And if you ignore the corrupting nature of power and money within institutions,
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including governments and companies that led to the suffering and death of hundreds of millions in the past century,
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you are once again not being honest with the lessons of history.
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I announced that I will be having this conversation with Albert Burla, Pfizer CEO, and a lot of people wrote to me.
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I would like to say that I was and am and always will be listening and learning with an open mind from everyone.
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My own opinion, worth little as it is, is that the development of the COVID vaccines is one of the greatest accomplishments of science and recent history.
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For the rest, from safety and efficacy to policy and economics, I stand humbled before a complicated world full of fear and anger.
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A small number of malicious people from all walks of life will use that fear and anger to divide us,
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because the division makes them money and gives them power.
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I took two shots of the Pfizer vaccine.
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This was my decision.
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I don't ever want to force this on anyone and I certainly don't want to dismiss your concerns or worse you as a person if you choose not to get vaccinated.
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I can assure you one thing, in this conversation and in any conversation, the choice of questions I ask and words I say is mine and mine alone.
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When my words fall short, as they often do, it is only because of the limitations of my mind and of my speaking ability.
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It is not due to pressure or fear.
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I'm not afraid of anyone.
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I cannot be bought by anyone with money, power or fame.
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I hope to prove this to you and to myself in the coming years.
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This life is short and to me, without integrity, it is not worth living.
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People sometimes talk down to me, call me naive.
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Perhaps they are right, but it is who I am.
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I think this life, this world, this, our human civilization is beautiful.
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And as the Stieffsky said, beauty will save the world.
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This is the Lex Friedman podcast and here's my conversation with Albert Burla.
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The development of the COVID 19 vaccine was one of the greatest accomplishments of science in recent history,
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no matter what, this should give people hope for the future and yet it is more a source of division.
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I hope we can discuss both the inspiring and the difficult ideas in this conversation
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so that we can do our small part in healing this division.
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Take me through the day of November 8th, 2020, when the Pfizer team were waiting for the results of the Phase 3 clinical trials.
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We had assembled in a very small office that we are having in Connecticut, very few people.
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There were five, I think, and in another place, what we call the data monitoring committee,
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which is a group of experts, independent experts there on Pfizer,
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we're going to have the opportunity to unblind the data
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and then tell us if the study needs to continue or if it is successful or if it fails.
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And we were waiting for their call.
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So the call came a little bit later than what we expected, which created a lot of anxiety to all of us,
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but came around, I think, two o clock.
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You're just sitting there waiting, what were you feeling?
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Sitting there waiting and teasing one another, drinking coffee, making jokes.
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So how did you feel like when you heard the results, the successful results?
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Free, liberated, happy, like if a huge weight that was on my shoulders was lifted.
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I heard you said, I love you to the team.
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This is how we speak in Mediterranean.
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Listen, maybe it's the Russian thing too.
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I love love, so I appreciate that kind of celebration.
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So looking back from that moment to before, how much did it cost to develop the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine?
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What was it like making the decision to make that investment when the risk is very high
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and you don't know if it's going to be successful?
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You know, we do a lot of that anyway.
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This is what we do in our daily work.
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We are putting money, we are investing in research, which is highly risky.
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The difference in that case was that we didn't risk at all, we put it all in.
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We put everything in one go so that we don't lose time.
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Usually we will spend 50 millions and then if that goes well, then we will spend another 50
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and then if it goes well, then 100.
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Here we put all together a little bit more than $2 billion, $2.3 billion.
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And it was a significant decision, but it was a very easy decision to make
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in the context of what we were living at that time.
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It was a pandemic, people were scared, we were scared.
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We didn't know how tomorrow would look like.
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We were living unprecedented situations and we knew that we have capabilities that may help.
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So there was not a second question or choice.
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When you make decisions like that, you're the CEO of a company that needs to make money.
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And that hopes to do a lot of good in the world.
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How much of both of those things are part of the calculation?
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So when you said it was an obvious choice, I think you've said a bunch of things of the kind
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of saying we need to go all in, sort of very boldly diving in.
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How much was that that the world is facing uncertainty and fear and potentially destructive
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pandemic in the early days?
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Just when you're seeing the full uncertainty before us, don't know how it's going to enroll.
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And how much of it is this may also be a good financial decision to take this risk?
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Yeah, I think about it all the time and I know very well that if you focus too much on making money,
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you will never make.
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You should focus in what is the real value driver.
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And the real value driver, it is to make breakthroughs that change patients lives.
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If you don't do that, you will never make money.
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If you do that, don't wear.
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Things will fall into place and also money will fall.
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But the mentality of the company is to be how to help the patient.
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And that's what the management was that the shareholders want, because that's the only
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way that we can create value.
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In this particular case, we're not thinking at all about what are we going to make when
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we sell it or if we don't sell it, because what we were focusing 100% was how to bring
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a solution to the world, but will help all of us change the way the fear that was bring
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hope to the world.
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And as always, when you do that, you will have good returns as well.
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On a philosophical level, on a human level, do you ever worry that the pressure to cover
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the costs that were invested to develop a new drug, to develop this vaccine harms your
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ability to conduct unbiased studies?
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Ah, not at all, because the studies are highly regulated.
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Everybody knows what regulators, and when I say regulators, FDA, European authorities,
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UK authorities, Israeli authorities, Japanese authorities, Canadian authorities, want to
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see how the study needs to be conducted and what exactly they need to see to approve it
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So clearly, everybody takes into consideration how much money I'm going to invest and what
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is the chances that I'm going to lose them.
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But what you can do is to change the rules of the game so that you won't lose the money.
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There are very well established methodologies that would say, with very high precision,
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if your medicine is effective, if your medicine is safe.
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And those are there for all and all playing with these emeralds.
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Do you have an intuition about why is the FDA trying to get 75 years to release the
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They're trying to request that it will not be released for 75 years.
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And then maybe the broader version of that question is, do you think people should have
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sort of full transparency and immediate access to the data, immediate, you know, on the scale
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of weeks, not years?
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I think the relations with regulators, they have been always very transparent, and there
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are a lot of laws that they are forcing regulators and companies to put out there, their interactions
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and what exactly was discussed.
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Now to go into specific details of some discussions, I don't know what is the reason that FDA
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wants to take the time, but I'm sure they have very good reasons.
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Well, let me just say my side of it.
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It doesn't look like a good reason.
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It looks like maybe it's because I come from the Soviet Union.
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Now, this is not you saying this, this is me saying this, is there seems to be a bureaucracy
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that gets in the way of transparency.
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That's always the challenge with government.
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So government is very good at setting rules and making sure there's oversight of companies
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and people and so on.
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But they create, they slow things down, which is a feature and a bug.
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And in this case, they slow down so much, I think the reason they set it at 75 years
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is because they set a rate of being able to only review 500 pages of data a day or something
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And it's a very kind of bureaucratic thing where in reality, you could just show the
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data and it's not like something is being hidden.
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But in a battle to win people's trust, to inspire them with science, it feels like transparency
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is one of the most beautiful things, one of the most powerful things that the FDA has.
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FDA has the potential to be one of the great institutions of our country.
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And this is one example that it feels to me like a failure.
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So in your perspective, you're saying, I'm sure they have a good reason.
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So do you, the FDA, is this black box that you submit things to once they approve?
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You know that those are the rules, it's approved.
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But this is not a black box.
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We know very well what is the process.
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Everybody knows very well what are the processes.
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The review process also, it is very detailed.
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They have scientists of very, very high caliber.
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Not every regulator in the world, but the Europeans, the Breeds, the FDA clearly, they
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have very, very high caliber of scientists that they are going into a lot of details.
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And also, basically everything for a study is really released by law in the specifications
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But it's a very detailed document that it is issue and has basically the essence of
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everything was discussed.
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I don't know about specific documents if take them time to release, but clearly this is
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not a black box type of process.
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A lot of this stuff is, how do you effectively communicate to the world about the incredible
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science that's been done, about the processes that were followed?
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And sometimes it's just in eloquence in communication.
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It's not that there's a failure process, it's in eloquence communication and silence.
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It's in the moment when clearly a lot of people are bothered and have questions.
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This is when you speak out and you explain exactly why as opposed to letting this distrust
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build up and linger.
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Because the result is there's a very large percent of the population that just, I mean,
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it divides people and science suffers, I think.
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And also the effectiveness of solutions suffers, like the vaccine and so on.
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I asked a few folks, I know, if they had challenging questions for you.
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I'm sure many of them answer your call.
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Well, yeah, yeah, you know, many friendly folks out there.
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By the way, I'm sweating not because this is a difficult conversation, it is, but it's
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also hot in here for the record.
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So one of the folks is Mr. Jordan Peterson.
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I don't know if you know who that is.
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He's a psychologist and intellectual and author.
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He suggested to me that I raise the concern that there's a close working relationship
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between Pfizer, FDA and CDC.
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So we talked about FDA.
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Do you worry that this affects both positive and negative, Pfizer's chances of getting
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The fact that there's people that worked at the FDA that now work at Pfizer, Pfizer,
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FDA, that there's a kind of pipeline.
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Does this worry you that it affects your ability to do great unbiased work?
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I have zero doubts that this is not affecting at all their ability to be unbiased and regulate.
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But in order to, for the system also reinforces that by creating significant time barriers,
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if someone moves from an industry to FDA, she won't be able to deal with topics for a
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And then for even an enhanced period of time with topics that are related with the company
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he or she may come from.
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I think these regulators, they are really very strict, rightly so.
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If anything, I feel sometimes that maybe they should be a little bit more open minded, particularly
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when it comes to new technologies, rather than trying to judge and implement the same framework
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or the variation of new technologies to all.
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They are always as regulators in the conservative side.
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But always, always they are unbiased and they are trying the best and it's not only one
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They have processes to make sure that there are self checks and balances within the agencies,
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both in CDC and in the FDA.
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Difficult decisions, they bring external experts that they should express.
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Easy decisions, they are internal experts that they are debating a lot.
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And if there are disagreements, they elevate them.
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So I think it's, we are lucky to have good regulators.
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I think I agree with what you said before, as with all governmental agencies, there is
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And the bureaucracy needs to be addressed.
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And by saying bureaucracy is not relaxing the bar, the bar needs to remain high.
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But being focusing on what matters rather than on the detail.
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So you don't, you know, I've been reading quite a bit about history.
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You don't worry about human nature and corruption that can seep in.
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You're saying institutionally there's protections against this.
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I think there is always the fear of corruption, particularly when you speak about public servants.
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But clearly the risk is very different country by country.
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And speaking about agencies by agencies.
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I think the regulatory agencies have a very good track record in history of the US, of
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Europe, of England, of very, very good track record of integrity.
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It's something I think about.
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So I grew up in the Soviet Union and I need to perhaps introspect this a little bit.
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But when I was growing up, ethically, there was a sense that bribery is the only way you
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can get stuff done.
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That was the system of the time.
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Like you get pulled over by a police officer.
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Like obviously you need to bribe them.
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It was like the way of life.
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And then so coming to this country was beautiful to see that the rule of law has so much power.
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And ultimately the rule of law when enacted, when it holds up, it gives people freedom
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to do the best work of their lives.
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But there's still human nature.
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And that worries me a lot here.
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And again, it goes back to the perception, the communication.
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When there's people that have worked at Pfizer and an FDA at the CDC, you look at the resume,
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they have those things on the resume.
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It worries people.
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Are these great leaders that we are supposed to see as authorities?
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Are they playing a game on us?
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I would say that I recognize what you said about what happened or I'm sure that what
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you describe in the country that you're coming from, how you experienced it.
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And I know that there are other countries that you need to do these things to do your
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I don't think it's the case in this country, particularly when it comes to those agencies
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that you mentioned.
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I think they have a very high track record.
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And also, I don't think that there are a lot of people that are worried about it or doubt
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I'm sure, like everywhere, there will be a minority, but the vast majority of the Americans,
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the vast majority of the Europeans, the vast majority of the Brits, the vast majority of
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the Israelis, they trust what FDA or EMA or CDC or NHRA will say.
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Still, there's currently a distrust of big pharma in the public.
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Maybe this is something I'd love to hear your comment on.
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There's distrust of science when it's tangled up with corporations and government institutions
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like we've talked about.
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But they have to be entangled to achieve scale or oversight and to achieve the kind of scale
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that Pfizer's been able to accomplish.
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How can Pfizer regain the public trust?
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How can you regain the public trust, do you think?
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Can that regain but sort of take steps to increase the public trust?
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Reputation is something that you can lose in buckets, but you can end up in drops.
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And once you lost it, you are going to take a lot of effort to bring it back.
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And the pharmaceutical industry lost it.
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It's clear that the reputation of the industry in the last decade was on the lowest that
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we have seen ever.
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And for there are many reasons for that, but clearly there are reasons that are related
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also with the behavior of the industry.
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That needed to change and I'm hopeful that very few will disagree that the industry is
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a very different industry right now.
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That being said, I truly believe that if there is one lesson that stands out from the many
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lessons that we learned during COVID, is the power of science in the hands of the private
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I think it was the private sector that came with solutions with diagnostic tests when
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we didn't have solutions with respirators, when we didn't have solutions with treatments,
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solutions with vaccines.
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And I think that demonstrated very clearly to the world the value of a thriving life
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sciences sector, private life science sector to society.
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That also affected very positively the reputation both of the sector and of Pfizer.
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I'm not going to make the mistake to consider given.
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I'm not going to make the mistake that because our reputation is high, that will remain so.
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We need to earn it every day.
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Every day with everything we do, with everything we say, with the way we behave.
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And I hope that we will rise to this occasion and we will do that.
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You've been in Pfizer for 28 years, time flies when you're having fun, and you've become
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It is a company you love, a company you believe in.
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It's a company that has developed drugs that has helped millions of people.
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So let me ask yet another hard question on this topic of reputation.
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In 2009, Pfizer pleaded guilty to the illegal marketing of arthritis drug, Bextra, and agreed
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to a $2.3 billion settlement.
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How do you make sense of the fact that this happened to a company you love and you believe
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The Bextra case in 2009 was related to things that happened in 2003.
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And the things that happened in 2003 were things that basically several of our reps
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did off label promotion.
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So they spoke with the physicians about off label use of the product, and they should
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Can you clarify it?
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So off label are things that the FDA didn't approve, extra stuff.
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You basically say this drug does extra stuff that the FDA never approved.
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And this is something that it is allowed when physicians are speaking to physicians, but
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it is not allowed for the pharmaceutical companies to refer to these studies because
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usually are studies that are happening off label.
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And apparently several of our reps in 2003, they did it.
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And we had to settle in 2009, and we paid a very big fine, as you said.
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The fine was related not to the severity of the conduct, but the size of the revenues.
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So the fines are, if Bextra was a small product, we would get a small fine.
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Bextra was a very big product, and we got a very large fine.
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What happened in 2003?
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I don't think that these things happened since then.
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We have a stellar record from 2009 until now of complying with every single regulation
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We have internal processes to make sure that these are not happening by individuals that
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may have an interest.
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For example, to get a promotion, they may try and do things that are not the right things.
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And we have, more importantly, a culture in this company that really sets aside people
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that they think differently.
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So I didn't like what happened in 2003, but I believe a lot has changed in the 20 years
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that followed, or almost 20 years.
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So you're developing drugs, you're developing solutions to help millions of people, but
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there's risk involved.
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And so there would be lawsuits heading back your way, because there's a lot of lawyers
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in the world, partially.
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How do you put that into the calculation of how you tried to do good in the world?
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That some of the cost is the lawsuits.
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How do you not fall victim to thinking that it's just the cost of doing business?
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And that some of the lawsuits might actually represent real pain that people are going
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No, I think that we try always to do the right thing.
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And that's, as I said, very well embedded into our culture.
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If you don't do the right thing, sooner or later, you will pay for it, one way or another.
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And right now, for us doing the right thing, it is being able to find innovations to issues
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that are real, diseases that they do not have good coverage, good treatments right now.
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We try to find treatments that significantly surpass the current standards of care.
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And we try not only to comply with what regulators are asking us to do, this is what you need
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to do to prove the safety or the efficacy, but exceed them.
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No matter what we do on that, I'm sure that people will find opportunity, because as you
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said, there are a lot of lawyers to sue us, but we believe in the justice system.
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And we believe that eventually, if you are doing the right thing, you will be on the
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right side of the history.
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I'm really glad you say that, because focusing on doing the right thing, no matter the money,
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I believe is the best way to make money.
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And also, in another way, in other realms, creating a product that people love is the
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best way to make money.
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So focusing on the core of the thing that makes people feel good, that brings value
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to people's lives.
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So I'm now in Austin, Texas, my good friend, Joe Rogan, he's been highlighting to me this
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aggressive marketing on mainstream media channels by Pfizer.
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So let me ask a general marketing question.
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Do you see this as a conflict of interest?
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Is it my bias, the reporting of news, that a lot of us, a lot of people, me included,
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look to these mainstream channels of news for kind of authority of what the heck's going
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And if Pfizer is sponsoring many of these shows, there's a worry, it may be a perception thing,
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but there's also a natural worry that it would influence what they're talking about, because
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they're afraid of losing the sponsorship.
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It's subtle, but at scale, it might have a serious impact.
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Do you worry about this?
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I think people could go one way or another because of multiple reasons.
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From our perspective, I don't think we have aggressive marketing.
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We go on TV and we are having ads about our products and they are highly regulated.
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I think it is the right of people to know, to learn that if there is a product like that,
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it's very clearly that we cannot say things, that they are off label, that have not been
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approved, we need to have, every time we go on TV, as you know, FDA is forcing us to say
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also the bad things that can happen for a medicine, sometimes that takes more time than
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And I don't think that we are doing aggressive marketing.
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Now, people could be influenced and can be biased in the podcast or in the other type
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of media activities that they have for multiple different reasons.
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Yeah, I know, but it's still, it's pressure, it's human nature, I mean, one of it is perception,
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but I worry about too.
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I think I have a ton of sponsors for this podcast, for example, and none of them ever
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asked me to do anything, they are just, you know, I think likely that kind of pressure
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is not happening for Pfizer, but there is implied pressure sometimes.
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And I worry about that a lot because, you know, I look at academia.
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I look for the good in people, I tend to believe most people are good or have the capacity
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to be good and the desire to be good.
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When I came to MIT, I was a little bit disappointed, maybe heartbroken.
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How much pressure, I think unjustified pressure people felt from financial constraints, especially
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at MIT when there's, I think, a lot of money.
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People still felt constraints and they weren't, they wasn't bringing out the best of them.
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They weren't supporting each other, they weren't loving each other, like celebrating each other's
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I don't want to blame money on everything, money constraints, but when you have sponsors,
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it just, I personally worry that it doesn't bring the best out of people.
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And so, I feel like I want to put some responsibility on sponsors and great big companies like
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Pfizer to kind of not get in the way of the best of human nature, whether it's sponsoring
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podcasts, mainstream media, like, I don't know, athletes, whatever.
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You need to know that we are so, so careful with sponsorships.
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First of all, we have very few, very, very few.
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We have a team that for every single one could be $2,000.
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They will try to see if there is a conflict of interest in the way we do it.
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And also, what is the reputation of the, of the, the persons or the programs that we are
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So, I don't think our friend, I think, was from Texas.
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I don't think he got it right that we do.
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We don't do those type of things.
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Oh, in terms of like having a negative effect on.
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Not even having aggressive sponsorships.
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When you clip them all together.
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And most of the sponsorships that we have, it is more on patient related organizations
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rather than we are very careful not to sponsor other things that can be perceived, not even
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influenced, but perceived that we may influence.
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So, we are very, very careful on that.
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This is not the case with us.
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So, with the incredibly fast development of the vaccine, could you tell me the story
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from the engineering to the science to the human story of how you could do it so fast?
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By November, you even had the ambition to do it by October, it was in the initial days.
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In that time, how do you show that the vaccine is safe and effective, given that I think
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previous vaccines have taken years to do that.
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The vaccines take years to do that and the time that it takes, it is basically the vast
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majority, the time to conduct the final phase three study for this, the confirmatory study.
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And you do that because the phase three study cost a lot of money in our case costs almost
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So, you don't want to go and risk a billion in blind data, normally, before you do a lot
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of experiments to make sure that the product that you're putting in the phase three is
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We didn't have that time, so we risk all the money.
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So we went into, we condensed all the time towards this phase three, but the phase three
link |
study had to follow all the rules that any study follows when we do this trial.
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Could you just briefly describe the basics of what is phase one, what is phase two, what
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Let's say that there are so many phases when you try, first of all, to find what is the
link |
We tried from 20 different vaccines, we nailed down to four, and for those four, we selected
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eventually two and then eventually one.
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Once you have those selections, what is the dose you're going to use?
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And then we tried multiple different doses to see which one we think is the best.
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What is trying in tail in those early days?
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You go, first of all, with smaller doses in humans, and then after you have done a lot
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of experiments in animals so that you can feel that it is safe enough to go to humans
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and then go with very low dose, and then you gradually increase the dose and then you monitor
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those humans to make sure that there are not any, let's say, reactogenicity to what you
link |
At the same time, you start to measure what is doing in terms of immune responses.
link |
So you do that with multiple vaccines and you do that with multiple doses and you do
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that with multiple ages of people, young people, old people.
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And eventually, from the 20 vaccines to multiple doses to multiple schedules, is it after three
link |
weeks, the second dose, or is it after four weeks or after six months?
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All of that will inform you that I think this is the vaccine, this is the dose, this is
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the scheme that I believe will give me the best results.
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And when you have that, then you go to do what we call the phase three.
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This is a very big study with thousands of people where you use the vaccine that you
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think is the right one and a placebo.
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The placebo and the vaccine, they look identical.
link |
Nobody knows if he's injected a placebo or a vaccine.
link |
The physician that makes the injection, the doctor, doesn't know if he's injecting placebo
link |
He knows a barcode, only the computer knows.
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In order to go into this computer, there are keys and there are at least two people that
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needs to put their keys so that someone can see the data.
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And those people, they have legal obligations, never to do that, right?
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So before a certain point, so all of that is blind.
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The idea is that when you go into this study, you need to make sure that you are going with
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That's why it takes so much time.
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But the study is the study.
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You need to have a significant number of people that will give the two and then you let them
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live their lives and then you see how many of them will get the disease.
link |
And then you see if there are differences in percentage of infections for the vaccinated
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compared to the nonvaccinated.
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At the same time, you are monitoring all of them to see if there are differences in the
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If those that go to the placebo have the same, let's say, heart attacks with those that they
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didn't, they got the vaccine because heart attacks will happen.
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If you have 50,000 people, because it's part of life, all these processes are very well
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established and since years.
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What we did the last one was exactly the same as we did always.
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We just didn't lose time.
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We were not careful with money.
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Instead of recruiting 50,000 people over a year because we had, let's say, 30 hospitals
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doing the recruitment, we went with 150 hospitals doing the recruitment that cost a lot of money.
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But instead of recruiting them in a year, we recruited them in three or four months.
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So I did this type of things by taking return on investment, taking costs out of the equation
link |
and we were able to achieve this result.
link |
But it's not the process, believe me.
link |
It is the heart of the people.
link |
People don't know what they can and what they cannot do.
link |
And if anything, they have a serious tendency to underestimate what they can do.
link |
And always, when you ask them something that is seemingly impossible, they will think out
link |
of the box to be able to deliver.
link |
We discussed about the timing instead of eight years, we didn't ask them to do it in six.
link |
We asked them to do it in eight months.
link |
Our normal manufacturing yearly production of Pfizer was 200 million doses of vaccines
link |
That was what we were doing in the last 10 years.
link |
We didn't ask them to make 300 million doses for a new vaccine.
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We asked them to make 3 billion doses for a new vaccine.
link |
The discovery phase of a new molecule, like the treatment that we have now, the pill against
link |
COVID, takes four years.
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We didn't ask them to do it in three.
link |
We asked them to do it in four months, which is what they did.
link |
When you're setting this type of goals, they know immediately they cannot just think within
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And immediately this is where the human ingenuity and the heart comes.
link |
And this is how they surprised all of us.
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So there's incredible science and engineering going on here.
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This is what's bothering me, that the conversation in public is often not about that.
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It's about politics, unfortunately.
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So I spent the day with Elon Musk yesterday.
link |
He works with rockets.
link |
Similar situation as with Pfizer in the sense that there's NASA and then there's private
link |
And that's a source of incredible inspiration to people.
link |
No politics, very little politics.
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This is part of the thing I'm hoping to do our little part in this conversation that
link |
help untangle a little bit, just reveal the beauty and the power of the thing that was
link |
done here, especially with the vaccine, but other things that are being done with the
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Let me just kind of linger on the safety.
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What can you say, there's a lot of people that are concerned that the Pfizer vaccine,
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by the way, of which I took two shots, no booster yet, is unsafe.
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What do you say to people that say that?
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No, they should not fear something like that.
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It's completely wrong.
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There is no medical product in the history of humanity that have been tested as much
link |
as this vaccine has been administered to hundreds of millions of people.
link |
And because of the importance of COVID, they have been scrutinized, those people, constantly.
link |
Right now, healthcare authorities are looking for every single signal around the world of
link |
people that they got the vaccine and try to see if it is vaccine related or not.
link |
There are electronic medical records that will tell us when and what happened to a person
link |
when he did got the vaccine.
link |
And we know now, we have so high certainty that it is so safe, exactly as the data sheet
link |
says about this vaccine, more than any other product.
link |
They should not be afraid of something like that.
link |
And they should not listen to information, what it is, misinformation, what it is spread
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Well, I don't like the word misinformation because, you know, again, back to the Soviet
link |
Union, anyone who opposes the state is spreading misinformation, so you can basically call
link |
anything misinformation.
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That's the unfortunate times we live in is you can call anyone, you can basically call
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anybody a liar and say, I'm the sole possessor of the truth.
link |
And just no offense to me, just because you wear a tie doesn't mean you're any more likely
link |
to be in the possession of the truth than anyone else.
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So I wouldn't disagree with that at all.
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I don't think that somebody who's not wearing a tie and as people can see that I'm not wearing
link |
a tie and you are, but it's not about being able, those that they have the power to impose
link |
on the others the stigma that you, what you are saying is misinformation.
link |
But there are a few things that the society, we have accomplished and science is one of
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And data is, and analytics of data is another one and to say that something which is highly
link |
scientific by people that they are not scientists, I think that it is not what you're describing
link |
what used to happen in the Soviet Union or in any other autocratic regime in the world
link |
But I definitely do think that the scientists, the public science communicators I've listened
link |
to over COVID have really disappointed me because they have not spoken with empathy.
link |
They haven't sufficiently in my view have put their ego aside and really listened to
link |
Yes, people that don't have a PhD, people have not really, maybe you've not even taken
link |
like a biology course in college or something like that, but still they have children, they
link |
worry, they fear, they don't know who to trust, they don't know if they should listen to the
link |
CEO of Pfizer who might have other incentives in mind who might just care about money and
link |
And so they just use common sense and they ask questions and I think to them, talking
link |
down to them as if they're not intelligent so on is something scientists have done almost
link |
like roll their eyes and that disappoints me because I think that's kind of what is
link |
the source of division.
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Look, humility is a virtue.
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And the fact that you are educated doesn't mean that you are having either humility or
link |
empathy or you have good human qualities.
link |
This was never and will never be a metric of judging this type of virtues.
link |
Those that they do this, they're wrong.
link |
And actually they are not doing good service to the public health because they are undermining
link |
people are not stupid.
link |
They see if you are not be respecting them and if you are not respecting their need to
link |
learn because that affects their health, the health of the mother, of the kids.
link |
So I fully agree with you that we should be very patient to explain again and again and
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again what is happening.
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And the vast majority of the people that they don't get vaccinations right now is because
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It's not for any other reason.
link |
It's not that they have an agenda.
link |
What I'm saying is there is a small number of people that they have made business for
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them to profit from this anxiety.
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I'll give you an example.
link |
I have been arrested by FBI.
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This is what someone wrote.
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I mean, okay, this is where they take it.
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There was a reason why they wrote it back.
link |
The FISA was arrested FBI because they want to create doubts in the minds of the people
link |
that they're afraid and say, look, if FDI arrested him likely, I will not do the vaccine.
link |
A week later, the wife of the FISA CEO died.
link |
There is a picture in this website of my wife.
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Someone says to me, now I'm pissed.
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I tried to find my kids to tell them if you read something, mom is fine, don't worry.
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Then I remember that she has very old parents back in Greece.
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We start calling them to making sure because you know that that will be picked up by Greek
link |
newspapers and they will publish it.
link |
They are those people that wrote these things.
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They know very well that my wife didn't die and died because she was vaccinated, right?
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So this is the narratives that they are on purpose forming to profit from the stress
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and the anxiety of good people.
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And that's something I have to kind of, people that listen to this, that kind of doubt institutions.
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I do also want to say that there's quite a few folks who realize they can make money
link |
from saying the man is lying to you.
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The government is lying to you.
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Big farmer is lying to you, they're manipulating you.
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I'm surprised at how much money can be made with that.
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So you have to, just as people use their common sense to be skeptical when listening to politicians
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and powerful figures, they should be skeptical to also when listening to sort of the conspiracy
link |
theorists or not even the conspiracy theorists, but people who raise questions about institutions.
link |
Think on your own, think critically with an open mind that everyone can be manipulating
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you, but also everybody has the capacity to do good.
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And I think science in its pure form, not when entangled with institutions, is a beautiful
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And in the hands of many companies, it is a beautiful thing at scale.
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Still, you have a lot of incentive as having created the vaccine at Pfizer, this incredible
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technology to sing it praises.
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So there's a kind of, you know, people are skeptical, like how much do we trust?
link |
How excited Albert is about this vaccine.
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So for example, not to do a Shakespearean analysis of you to Twitter, but I think you
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tweeted something about a study with 100% efficacy of the vaccine or in stopping a transmission
link |
or something like that.
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Do you regret sort of being like overrepresenting the effectiveness of the vaccine, technically
link |
saying correct things, but just kind of like highlighting the super positive things that
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may be misinterpreted, you know, saying 100%.
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No, I never said something 100% that every time I speak, if a number is 100%, I rush
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to say that in biology, there is nothing 100% because always there will be when you go
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There were in the study things that were 100%, for example, deaths or in South Africa.
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When we tried it, there was 100% efficacy, clearly small numbers.
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When the numbers will become much bigger, the 100% will not hold, but will be 95, 96.
link |
So still the direction of this is the point.
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So I'm very, very careful what I tweet and in addition to how careful I am, I have people
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that they are looking at and they are having second or third opinions to make sure that
link |
Because I know that people are listening to me right now, everything I say.
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And I want to make sure that they continue not only being clear as to what I want to
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say so they don't misunderstandings, but also I maintain the trust of the people.
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I don't think that someone who only picks information and only emphasizes positive things,
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but someone that it is the one to be trusted and I want me and Pfizer to be trusted.
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So many felt the vaccine was presented as a cure that wouldn't require regular booster
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Was that something you believed early on, did you always believe that many regular shots
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would be required?
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And maybe in a bigger picture, how many, do you think this will, for the Pfizer vaccine,
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is it something you see that's taking a booster shot regularly, like annually?
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Beginning when we had the first months of the vaccine, people would ask me, do we need
link |
And I said, we don't know.
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I was very clear about it.
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Then around April, May, I started seeing the first data and I made statements that I think
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we will need a booster around eight to 12 months after the second dose.
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And then after that, annually vaccinations, this is what I said, believe is one of the
link |
most likely scenarios.
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And it was based on the data that I had, but then Delta came.
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And because I always making the caveat that with absent a new variant, with everything
link |
we know, with Delta, it was proven that we need the booster to move to the three, to
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And this is what happened.
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And I still said, I think the booster is a six months.
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And then I think it will be an annually vaccination, likely.
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We have to monitor to see the data, but this is the likely scenario.
link |
Now we have Omicron.
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And Omicron says that two doses might be challenging.
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We don't know exactly yet, but three doses work.
link |
So clearly a lot of countries already started moving now, the third dose, not from six months
link |
to three, so that they will reduce the period that people will not be protected with the
link |
I don't know with Omicron, if how long this will last.
link |
And frankly, I don't know if we will need a new vaccine tailor made to Omicron based
link |
on everything we know so far.
link |
We are monitoring and we will know way more in the weeks to come.
link |
If there is a need for a new vaccine, we will have it.
link |
And if there is a need for mass production of this new vaccine, I can also feel very
link |
comfortable that we will not lose any of our capacity that we have developed.
link |
Right now we are running at one billion, almost approximately, doses per quarter, four per
link |
And if we have two streets and have half of that in the new, half of that in the old,
link |
we will do still four billion doses.
link |
So I think the world should feel very, very comfortable, but if there is a need, we will
link |
be ahead of the virus.
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Yeah, you did, you delivered or produced three billion this year vaccines and you're on track
link |
to do four billion next year.
link |
I mean, if we had a lot more time, we would talk about how the heck you achieve that kind
link |
It's truly incredible.
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Let me ask the policy question.
link |
What are your feelings about vaccine mandates in terms of do you think the most effective
link |
way to vaccinate the population is to acquire it?
link |
Or do you go with the American way and give people the freedom to choose?
link |
I think it is a very difficult topic and a very difficult decision, whoever needs to
link |
And clearly it's not me.
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It is the public health officials of every country that they have to make this decision.
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I have to make the decision for Pfizer employees and I had to balance the fear of those that
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they work, that they want to feel that the others are vaccinated and the fear of those
link |
that they don't want to get the vaccine.
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And eventually I came to the decision that we will mandate it at Pfizer.
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We are giving exceptions, of course for health, maybe some religions, but we decided to mandate
link |
Now, at Pfizer, when we did this decision, we were at 90% vaccination rates when we said
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you are going to mandate it.
link |
And that took it up to 96.
link |
This 10% was never going to move, I felt, because no matter what, you have a small number
link |
of people that really are scared and they don't feel comfortable to do it.
link |
It worked in our case.
link |
We took it to 96%.
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I'm happy for those people.
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A lot will not disease and some will not die of the obvious people.
link |
But it's not to me to say because the debate, it's serious debate and there are a lot of
link |
pros and cons if you need to push people, if you need to give them the freedom and it
link |
comes with the territory.
link |
If you are elected to run a country, you should be ready to make difficult decisions.
link |
And no matter what decision you make, there will be fake stories written about you as
link |
You will not be able to please everyone.
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Well, let me just say that I think, again, coming from the Soviet Union, I think at the
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public level, at the federal level, mandates is a really bad idea.
link |
Even if it's good for the health of the populace, there's something about preserving the freedom
link |
is really powerful about this country.
link |
Like doing the hard work of convincing people to get vaccinated, to choose to get vaccinated
link |
if they want, but still have the freedom not to.
link |
That's a really powerful freedom.
link |
To me, it's super lazy to mandate.
link |
People should understand the science and want to get vaccinated.
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Do you think children need to get vaccinated?
link |
I do think that they need to get vaccinated.
link |
So age ranges five to 16, there's a lot of parents that fear for the well being of their
link |
Can you empathize with those parents?
link |
Can you still man their arguments against the vaccine for their children?
link |
Because people know who I am.
link |
I had the opportunity to interact with parents before that was, let's say, approved.
link |
And there were so many way more that I had a lot of empathy because they were afraid
link |
for their kids because they didn't have a vaccine.
link |
And they were the ones that were speaking at that time, bringing me a vaccine.
link |
When are you going to bring me a vaccine?
link |
I have a really fear.
link |
I feel that this is unfair, but I am protected, my husband is protected, my old son is protected
link |
and my little sweetheart, because he's below the age, is not protected.
link |
Now that we have the vaccines, I'm sure that those that are afraid of the vaccine, not
link |
of the disease, which are smaller number, admittedly, also, they will have, if they
link |
are afraid of them, I'm sure that they will afraid even more about their kids because
link |
they love, I would say, more than they love themselves.
link |
So it's going to be this situation.
link |
And again, the same, how it can you do to demonstrate, to convince people, to win the
link |
minds and the hearts of the people, but this is the right thing to do.
link |
What do you think about that calculation?
link |
Because the risk for kids is very low.
link |
Kids do die, kids do go to the hospital from COVID, but the rate is very low.
link |
The rate is lower, but kids, they do die.
link |
And how can you say that I'm not going to protect a kid for something that it is likely
link |
And it is not only that.
link |
What happens in the school, when they stop the education process, because a kid got the
link |
disease and they don't have vaccines so that they can control, it is such a big disruption
link |
and such a big risk for the health of the kids, that it shouldn't be a debate.
link |
Look, how many kids are having polio right now?
link |
Way fewer number than those that are having COVID in the hospital.
link |
But everybody is getting the vaccine.
link |
Well, polio was deadlier for kids.
link |
So why some a kid to do it now?
link |
Because it needs to be protected.
link |
Well, the unique thing about the COVID vaccine is a new type of technology too.
link |
So there's an extra concern.
link |
Choosing to vaccinate a child, you're making a choice that can potentially hurt them.
link |
That's the way parents that are hesitant about the vaccine think.
link |
I think choosing to vaccinate children makes a choice so that something could not potentially
link |
hurt them, which is the disease.
link |
That's why we are doing vaccinations since ever.
link |
I know that there are people that they're concerned for themselves and for their kids.
link |
What I know it is that I'm a scientist and I'm a parent and I am telling you that vaccines
link |
is a very good thing for kids and thank God we were able to develop them.
link |
So we've talked quite a bit about the vaccine, but there's an incredible new technology that
link |
Pfizer is developing with the Pax Lovid antiviral for COVID.
link |
Where does that stand?
link |
How does that work?
link |
And how are you able to develop it in four months, like you said, and all of that in
link |
just a few minutes?
link |
First of all, what this is about, this is a real game changer.
link |
This is a course of treatment that you get only if you get the disease, you get COVID.
link |
Then what happens is that you will take for five days pills, day and night, and twice
link |
a day for five days.
link |
And instead of 10 people from those that disease to go to hospital, only one will go.
link |
This is, and with all the caveats that the numbers are small, no one died.
link |
It was 100% efficacy on deaths.
link |
Of course, I'm sure that in real world, when the numbers are getting very high, we may
link |
have 99 instead of 100.
link |
But these are spectacular results for something that you can take home and stay home.
link |
The biggest problem right now in Europe, in the U.S., when we have surges, every time
link |
that we have a surge of COVID, it is that the ICUs are full, the hospitals are paralyzed,
link |
they have to postpone elective surgeries, they have to postpone other operations because
link |
they don't have the capacity because of that.
link |
Keeping people out of the hospitals, home, keeping people without dying, it is something
link |
that you didn't have before.
link |
But this is a significant, significant game changer.
link |
I have to ask a controversial, difficult question.
link |
What are your thoughts about ivermectin?
link |
Has it sufficiently been studied?
link |
Has Pfizer considered it in its, like I said, incredible development of the antiviral?
link |
As a comparator, that kind of thing, just investigated in general.
link |
The reason I bring it up, because I've read quite a few criticisms of people, there's
link |
been some comparisons of Paxilover to the ivermectin, and I think people should look up.
link |
There is Dr. John Campbell that describes that comparison and makes that claim, and there's
link |
quite a lot of people that debunk or argue against that.
link |
You can do your own research, but there is a lot of people that kind of see this free
link |
drug without patents on it and say, this could be the savior.
link |
So can you just speak to that comparison?
link |
It's not the first time, if you remember, there were other compounds that were claimed
link |
that they are the solution to COVID, and clearly, they were proving that they're not.
link |
There are compounds that there are solutions and compounds that they're not.
link |
As a scientist, and I discuss with our scientists, they don't see any reason why a medicine like
link |
ivermectin, which is a parasitic side, to be able to act on COVID, and so they don't
link |
see that there's any connection, and they haven't seen any paper that describes someone
link |
that used it that it had any results.
link |
I'm sure that there will be some people that will claim, because people are claiming anything,
link |
but I don't think that there was any paper in any peer review magazine, a reliable scientific
link |
magazine, to support this claim.
link |
So we are focusing on saving people's lives.
link |
We are not focusing on craziness.
link |
Well, to push back, there is quite a lot of papers, but the studies are small, so there's
link |
no conclusive evidence.
link |
I haven't seen any that it is reliable.
link |
I don't know where are these smaller, big, reliable.
link |
I haven't seen any.
link |
Some of the big ones have been retracted, which means they weren't legitimate.
link |
This is definitely something that people need to look into, the people that kind of question
link |
of the effectiveness of ivermectin, definitely something to think about, and I think is the
link |
It was chloroquine on them before, for God's sake.
link |
That's why I packed them.
link |
How many people died because of that?
link |
This is the dangerous thing.
link |
This is the sad thing.
link |
Max Lovitt has been studying thousands of people and will be under the scrutiny, not
link |
only of regulators, but as we will go into the implementation, as it happened in many
link |
countries, they will monitor to see what's happened.
link |
Let's say that whatever we do, once it is out there, within a few weeks, they will know
link |
all hospitals if it works or not, because they will see the statistics.
link |
We've gone through one of the more difficult periods in recent human history over the past
link |
two years, like as a society.
link |
What gives you hope about the future for human civilization?
link |
You look into the next few years.
link |
I think the human ingenuity.
link |
I think although the world always is progressing, although there are a lot of things that need
link |
to be fixed in the society of 2020.
link |
The society of 2020 is better at large than things 50 years back, 100 years back, in all
link |
different aspects, from poverty, for human rights, from science, from quality of life,
link |
I am positive that humans can create and always create a better future, and we'll continue
link |
You have helped save the lives of millions of people, help improve the quality of their
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lives, but you yourself are just one biological organism with an expiration date.
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Do you ponder your mortality?
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Do you think about your death?
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Are you afraid of death?
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That's a very interesting question.
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I was discussing with a lot of people that I was fearless of death.
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I couldn't care less when I was young.
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The first time that I start feeling that I want to be around was when I had kids.
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Then I started feeling that, oh, gosh, I hope I will be around to see their wedding.
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I hope they will be around to see their children.
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If there is something that scares me, the possibility I will not be part of their lives
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anymore, and I will not be watching.
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I hope there is life upstairs, so I will be able to watch them from there.
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Get a nice overview.
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Let me ask the big, ridiculous question, and you only have two minutes or less to answer
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What is the meaning of life?
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What's the meaning of this whole thing?
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You said ingenuity is the thing that gives you hope.
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We seem to be all busy trying to help each other, trying to build a better world.
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Why are we doing that?
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I would repeat something that Steve Jobs has said.
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Death is life's biggest invention.
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It eliminates the old and gives place to the new.
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Life is all about moving forward.
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Life is all about creating new things.
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Maybe everyone is a contributor, but no one is the owner.
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Always creating something new.
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Adding something beautiful into the world may be a little bit of love.
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Albert, thank you so much.
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It's a huge honor that you go through some of these difficult questions with me today,
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and then you give your extremely valuable time for this conversation.
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Thank you so much for talking to me.
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Thank you for your interest, and I'm happy as I was telling you before, but I can brag
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with my kids that I was in your podcast because you are their hero.
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Thanks for listening to this conversation with Albert Berla.
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To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
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And now, let me leave you with some words from Oscar Wilde.
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The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
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Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.