 Good afternoon. I have a great pleasure to start a dialogue with one of the chief executives probably most in the news last year. And also, Dr. Willow, you made today a very groundbreaking announcement. We will certainly come back. But I have the pleasure to introduce Dr. Albert Buller, who is since 2019, just before the COVID crisis broke out. You were nominated chairman and CEO of Pfizer. And what a formidable journey in the last 30 months. You certainly have made a major contribution, so many of us became resistant against the virus. So thank you on behalf of everybody. And I think what is remarkable is the fact that you went into this direction or venture without asking for public help as far as I know, because you could have probably had access to billions of dollars, but you did it yourself. You did it alone together with your partner, also BioNTech. Now, I just have said you made a major announcement, groundbreaking announcements this morning. Can you tell us a little bit more? First of all, thank you for the honor, Chairman, to be here with you. Today we announced that we will offer all our patent protected medicines, all vaccines or medicines that currently exist in the U.S. or in Europe to the 45 poorest countries of the world. It is a population of 1.2 billion people at cost. And we also make the commitment that every year, as we discover and bring to the U.S. or to the Europe or to the world new medicines, automatically those new medicines will be inserted into the offer of the portfolio that we will offer into these countries. I think that is really fulfilling of a dream that we had together with my leadership team when we started in 19. The first week we met in January of 19 in California and to set up the goals for the next five years. And one of them was by 2023 we will reduce the number of people in the world that cannot afford our medicines by 50%. I think today this dream is becoming reality. So it's really a purpose-driven company and if you say at cost without margin or certainly you must add a certain margin for research and development? We will not. We define at cost strictly what it takes to manufacture it and very minimal shipment. We exclude all the research money that took to invent the medicines, all the legal that took to make the contracts or everything or the administrative cost, everything that it is sometimes is added to the non-profit will not be added in that case. It's going to be strictly the cost to make and ship. If I think of all the discussions during the last year related to COVID medicine I think this is such a breakthrough and if you see how many people in the developing world and here I can immediately come in with the question when we talk about the developing world whom do you help? I mean are all countries included? We use the principle. So we are including all the low income countries according to the World Bank definition. They are 27 but because there's always great line between the income of countries that they are not anymore because they improved a little bit but still they cannot afford we decided that every country that used to be low income but they graduated to higher level the last 10 years will also be included that give us 45 countries which are 1.2 billion 1.2 billion people and would you help those countries also afterwards to develop their own production line? What we are going to do and this is a very good point that what we discovered through the pandemic was that supply was not enough to resolve the issues that these countries are having right now for example there are billions of doses of our vaccine the vaccine that was used in Europe in the US that it is offered to low income countries for free and it is offered by the US government mainly but also by the European Union that they are doing donations so the US government bought for us at cost and they donate it. They can't use them right now because we discovered that one thing is supply and the other thing is to have educated population that believe that vaccines is doing well to have doctors or nurses that will administer to have infrastructure and logistical that you can store it in every place in the country and not only in the capital of the country a lot of things are missing. For this reason given the lessons that we got in addition to the initiative that is brought and addresses 45 countries we selected five of them that the governments are really keen to work on these issues as well those five it is Rwanda Malawi Uganda Ghana and Senegal so with those five we signed already our letters of intent and we will work not only giving them the medicines but on the ground to identify blockages between the medicine arrives in the country and the medicines is used by a patient is it that for example we have now breast cancer medicines they are very expensive medicines there are women in Africa that they have breast cancer they're not diagnosed all and one thing is to say we don't invest in diagnosing breast cancer because we don't have the medicine anyway now you will have the medicine but you need both so we will send also experts from our side we have a program that we call global fellow so everyone in Pfizer can raise the hand I said I volunteer I want to go to work with the NGO for six months for nine months and we guarantee his position when he goes back we keep providing the salary and to provide also cost accommodations and we network with these organizations physicians can go doctors engineers can go to help with this country so we will do all of that so to make sure that it's not only we wash our hands we send your medicines we care to make an impact we care to make a difference so you are becoming really a global health provider unfortunately I wish to to to be able to do that I don't think I would be able to do it alone so that's why I'm calling everyone that has something to offer in that space the World Health Organization the Bill Gates Foundation the Carter Foundation other organizations non-governmental doctors without borders that they have resources there we would like to partner together so they can do diagnosis we can give them medicines like Gavi which Gavi for example has made a huge difference in the world yeah the the biggest product of Gavi the one that according to Gavi and Bill Gates have saved more lives it is a pneumococcal vaccine that we are providing see let's say the founder was Bill Gates but it was originated here actually Gavi was born here he always says that when he speaks he says that was here in Davos me Davos yeah it's a Davos child if I may say so and we have many children now you you referred to it already how important is cooperation I mean and not only you have to have corporations with us our businesses but also with governments I I feel you you have sometimes to do also with very little knowledge of government for such matters like complicated medicines and so on what is the importance of cooperation how do we approach it I think it's very important I think nothing would have happened during the pandemic for example without cooperation but nothing would have happened when Gavi was founded yeah and nothing would have happened in the world if the stakeholders they don't set common goals certain they need to be purpose driven goals and follow through those goals we saw it in all aspects for example AstraZeneca partnered with academia Oxford to make it happen we partner with a small biotech to make it happen we partner with FDA or EMA to approve the products there was a lot of work that happened from many so that we will be able to reach the level that we reached I have to say as an observer when I look at your cooperation with biotech in such a setting you will feel that there must be tensions but you always really acted as twins cooperating can you say something about yeah I can say I think it is the best partnership we ever had yeah I think the trust is what is defined starts from the top surprisingly not surprisingly but thank god we bond it immediately with Uggersahin who is the the founder and it is amazing because I'm Greek and Jew and he's Turk and Muslim and I immigrated to the US and he immigrated to Germany so there's common paths in the two of us and we both the first thing that we exchanged when we said the agreement was that it's going to be an oral agreement for the next couple of months because you don't have time to sign contracts we start the work immediately we started the work in January or when we started the work in March and the main we signed the contract after two months which was only the research the main contract which was a commercial agreement to define billions basically of dollars was signed in January of 21 after everything was done all of the time we were operating with the trust of our world who doesn't happen in corporate world now I I come back to a technical question when you produce so it's very complicated medicines about mRNA some people say the knowledge is not actually not the intellectual property of the product it's a production itself could you say something about it I think there are across the board for example we don't own right now for this vaccine intellectual property it is buy on tax right but we develop the manufacturing process to be able to do it so all of that are things that they count in general I think that the mRNA technology it is a very powerful technology I don't think it's a panacea I don't think it's the holy grail I don't think that will treat all diseases in the world but I do think that is we just scratch the surface of what we can see how much you see mRNA technology protected by patents or I think it's the holy grail without the protection buy on tech would never have the money that they got from their investors to develop it without intellectual property we would never have the money what we have because we everything we do we do with other people's money they're called in shareholders they can tell us put the money in new research or give it back to us for dividends I think the bloodline of the innovative industry it is this concept that a property cannot only be bricks and mortar can also be intellectual property and that's exactly what is happening in technology or in high biology it's very important now that leads me exactly to the next question what types you actually are is it scientific curiosity is it I mean you exclude it already material let's say reasons what types what types talk to bull I mean me personally I like what I do I like what we do because it's intellectually challenging but also has the additional benefit that the success brings good to the world it's very intellectual challenging to make a perfect cell phone and that brings satisfaction to the world and anybody should be very proud of being able to do it but when you are helping to make a breast cancer medicine or breast a lung cancer medicine you are getting not only the satisfaction that you want but the satisfaction that the impact was saving lives so that's something that in our industry our people are feeling every day is not the same with the other industries it's still a certain extent like my own 800 colleagues in the forum I mean being driven by this feeling of improving the state of the world it's a very big driver yeah and I'm certain that this this sense this mindset was what drove people to work day and night and I'm talking about no 30 or 40 people I'm talking about 1000 people in this vaccine because for eight months the four digit number of people they were not slipping literally which it's exactly it is the next question when to take on COVID-19 to produce your your vaccines it must have meant a major change of the company I mean you had traditional successful products and now suddenly you have an overriding objective how did you manage this first of all it was challenging but in our being unfortunate to have COVID that was also fortunate because draw very different behaviors let's remember that the times that we're trying to develop a solution faster than a smaller biotech that was the challenge for Pfizer how to move fast because we are big right but these were days of darkness with no hope in the horizon so people were afraid that the civilization the way we know it will is could could disappear that was a tremendous weapon in my effort to convince everyone that we need to go about making the impossible possible because there are a lot at stake and then surprise surprise they made the impossible possible so the the company was before to a certain extent driven by the fears that the pipelines are running out and now suddenly you had such a full pipeline yes but I have to say that there is also because of the work of my predecessor it's not that I came and I found the company that was collapsing I found the company the best shape one could give to another and I built on it now if you look more to the future do we have to expect prolongation of the pandemic or at least the epidemic or how would you foresee the future yes or do we have to and I may immediately ask a second question should we be afraid of another virus and what does it mean how we create the necessary resilience personally nationally globally on the first question I don't think that the virus will disappear we are not certain about it but most scientists agree that the virus will be around forever but the real question that everybody's asking is not this it is can we get our lives back can we live normal can normal economic activity normal social activity with a virus presence and the answer is yes I think we can absent a variant that we are not have not foreseen right now that can happen but it is not the most likely scenario I think we have the means right now very effective vaccines as the various as the variant as the as the virus mutates we have the ability to follow up and please let's say update the vaccines and to have treatments with that people should not die anymore even if we are not following the way that we are following the the social measures in the past now on the second question shall we are afraid of if a new very different virus that would come and to have now all these examples with the monkey parks I don't think we should be afraid but I think we should be prepared and that should even the little fear that we have we should that should be easy and if we are prepared I think science will win now some people may argue you have now says new treatments some people may argue why should I get vaccinated if there is a treatment or how would you respond because I think the goal is not for you to get sick and then treat you the goal is to prevent the sickness and that will maximize your chances to do well and that will maximize the chances of people that you love not to get infected you vaccinate not only for yourself you vaccinate also to protect society and particularly to protect those that you love the most because they are the ones that you are together what what do you foresee I mean most of we I think we set the standard because in Switzerland for those who do not know so no restrictions anymore so we set the standard that we require vaccination now how many vaccinations do we need in the future it's a very good question and I think uh first of all I think we will need vaccinations in the future but also I'm concerned that the compliance of the population with the recommendations of the experts will not be very high more people did the first dose and then lesser did the second and then lesser will do the third and the fourth and so for that reason we need to find the solution that makes it easy for people to get and I think this solution it is the number one priority is to have a vaccine that lasts a year so once people know that it is once a year I do it every autumn for example fall I think that will improve the amount of people that they are getting the vaccine and I think you also certain attempts to combine it with a anti-flu that is another very good way to make it to improve compliance if someone thinks that I'm going to go to the doctor or to the pharmacy but at least with one shot I will get to flu and that also will increase the number so these are the things it's very difficult to improve the efficacy right now it's very very high but what you can improve it is how convenient it is and how can last the efficacy for a longer period of time so question which I ask now the audience is maybe not fair but despite let's say no restrictions in Switzerland we insisted on being vaccinated being tested twice and this may become a standard for future meetings anyway I mean if we are not getting rid of the virus anybody who felt this was too much or I said it's an unfair question because who would have who would have but I just can share with you we had many internal we had many internal discussions now when you but when you look at let's say it's a process to get a pool and usually it's a very FDA as European authority it's a very cumbersome process can you tell us something do you feel governments understood very fast your needs and reacted positively to your needs or would you recommend for the future any any change in public private cooperation if we are confronted again with such a situation there are a lot of good examples great examples and there are examples that maybe we can improve for future situations always the intention was very good I'm convinced about it by all now you ask about regulators I think both EMA and FDA and most regulators the UK regulators as well I think they belong in the category that they did extremely well I think they understood the situation and they stood they sacrifice themselves also a lot I know that preparing the final report maybe 30 of our people couldn't sleep for five days and they would send and they would go to bed and then the next day FDA will start 30 FDA people will not sleep for five days to review the date here because usually takes six months and now they were doing it in one week so this was crucial for our success we wouldn't be able to do what we did without this cooperation now there are some other examples but for examples when in countries that there are multiple centers of of scientific authority that they don't coordinate very well and some happen also in the US sometimes between NIH and CDC and there was not all this let's say the most smooth collaboration they are the first ones to recognize that this is happening and I think they already announced that they try to find ways so that they can be better when you get the conditional approval or preliminary approval who is actually carrying so this is the liability if something is happening I mean if it's not working out well most countries they identify that in the US and in Europe was always clearly identified so they are taking the liability if there are lawsuits for example against that so the government is taking so it is it was some issue with the US and Europe were ready for that already but I think most of the issues were with some countries that were not familiar with that and we took what was our concern with the vaccine it's not with any other methods for example now we don't ask anyone to do anything like a bill but with a vaccine that we knew that there is a very fanatic group of anti-vaxxers that will go after us no matter what they will claim that the sun didn't go up because people were vaccinated and that created issues with the crop so I'm suing you and one thing it is to sue you in the US another thing is to sue you in a country where the legal system is not up to that standards or in Switzerland right so I think that's behind us everything went okay and now I think we can move on I think we were we were both targets of the anti-vaccine movements and conspiracy people claiming that I had tripled I wondered what it is tripled COVID but I was I think he got hundreds of thousands of clicks and so on I know you were also target I read one day what was arrested by FBI yeah same happened to me and there are pictures pictures of me and FBI officers I don't know how yeah I never said the surprising thing it is that the same publication I found out because I had published the previous one that was arrested was the Pope by FBI so ridiculous yeah so we are good company yeah at least I was in good company yeah but um you know there was such a success of mRNA um technology how confident can we be or how hopeful can we be so this technology helps also in many other diseases cancer particularly malaria I think was mentioned in the media can you lift the curtain about what's happening in I think we will see a lot of advancements with mRNA and the good thing after the success of COVID it is that right now we have a substantial wave of companies biotechs and big farmers that are working on mRNA a lot and they are working on multiple applications of mRNA so I think the first the the first things that I'm hopeful to see it is other vaccines other than COVID a flu vaccine with mRNA a single vaccine with mRNA other vaccines with mRNA the second wave I think that we could see it is cancer we are there is a lot of research that was happening for many years now trying to use your immune system to attack your cancer cells to train your immune system as the vaccine is training to attack the virus and kill it is to kill your cancer cells then we are going to the third horizon which the technology will be used for gene editing to be able if people are born they have a genetic disease that is right now it is untreatable and in many cases a death sentence for those there's nothing that they can do about it now we have some hopes that maybe that also can work so we will see a lot of advancements exactly because so many people are working we are working on that as well on all of that but there are also many others so that increases the chances that something will come out as a company so much a build on research you had to observe the COVID restrictions yourself so how how did you manage I mean this homework to undertake such a great effort yeah actually it's a very good point and you need to know that we have some other heroes in Pfizer but they didn't become so famous there are the people that are working in all our injectable and hospital products we are the largest supplier of injectable products to the world and suddenly with COVID we saw that the demand was going for some medicines that were needed in icu's from 50 to 500 times not and we had to manage this uptick in supply while we had to operate the manufacturing sites under COVID conditions so very strict who goes in who goes out I'm very proud of what they were able to do because really the world we didn't see with few exceptions here and there that were transient big issue with icu's don't have their medicines they were transient as I said but it could have been a disaster and it was not because of the work that they did didn't you have no thank you thank you for that didn't you have a problem with part of the company engaged in such a exciting exercise and then you had the traditional part so must have been a cultural let's say tension between the two parts how did you manage it I'm trying to tease the others that you you have now to prove that you have your moment and cancer team you saw what the vaccines team did so now is your time to sign bring us the cure not only the so and they do actually vaccines was one of the six business units of Pfizer and the other five were watching them doing their thing and they were also wanting to have their moment and the second one was the infectious disease unit that did the treatment and I'm sure the others are working on that as well I have a last question time is unfortunately running out and we could certainly continue for a long time what if you take all your experience now and you have your many CEOs also sitting in the room what would be your message to them based on your personal experience I think the biggest lesson for me was that people they don't know what they can and cannot do in their lives and if you set the bar high if you give them very high ambitious goals and trust in the resources you will be surprised how much they deliver now I had a question and the question is you must have had some doubts yourself because so we're such an expectation level of the public and it could have gone wrong with some setbacks or some bad cases and so on how did you manage yourself this tension over such a long time it was tension for all and for me and the truth is that the CEO is in a lonely position because there is no one to stop you if you make a mistake so which means that buck stops with you there and you are responsible for everything right but I felt that what really made me drive is we don't have any option here what is the option not to do it and then what have the world die I mean if Pfizer wouldn't engage full speed in something like that with all hands on deck when the world was needing something like that who would do it right so there was very clear that's what we have to do and that keeps you dry when when you understand that this is what it's at stake you understand that if you lose three billions it will be painful but it's not going to be the end of the world but if we don't find the solution it's going to be very painful for all thank you and when we applaud you I think we do it for two reasons first it was very evident your social responsibility your sense for purpose and second thank you for having so openly shared with you with us your let's say objectives and also your concerns and what drives you thank you very much talk about thank you very much