Covid: Pfizer CEO Predicts Annual Vaccine and Defends Billion Dollar Profits

People will likely need annual Covid-19 vaccinations for many years to come, the Pfizer CEO said in an exclusive interview with the BBC. According to Albert Bourla, this would be necessary to maintain a “very high level of protection.”

In the interview, conducted before the emergence of the omicron variant, discovered in South Africa, he also defended the billion-dollar profits of vaccine makers, arguing that the financial reward was justified by “millions of lives being saved” and “trillions of dollars”. ” saved for the world.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is currently the second most prevalent in Brazil, after AstraZeneca, produced by Fiocruz, with nearly 100 million doses applied so far, according to the Ministry of Health. CoronaVac, produced by the Butantan Institute, is third most used.

Bourla said Pfizer has already produced updated vaccines in response to the beta variants, also initially detected in South Africa, and the delta, first identified in India, but that those versions were not needed.

The company is now working on an update of the immunizer in response to the omicron variant, which could be ready in 100 days. According to Bourla, vaccines helped save millions of lives during the pandemic, and without them the “fundamental structure of our society would be threatened”.

By the end of the year, Pfizer hopes to have supplied 3 billion doses of its messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine with another 4 billion planned for next year. There has been a global rush to protect vulnerable people, added the Pfizer CEO, but by 2022, countries would have “as many doses as they need”.

stock prices

Many consider the money that Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are earning from the pandemic immoral.

Pfizer is expected to earn at least $35 billion in revenue from the sale of Covid vaccines this year alone. The value of the company’s shares soared.

But while most people in the world have already received at least one dose of the immunizer, only seven in 100 are fully vaccinated in Africa.

Bourla has not apologized for the profit his company has made, arguing that “the end result is that millions of lives have been saved”. “We’ve saved trillions of dollars for the global economy. It’s a strong spur to innovation for the next pandemic,” he said.

“But people will see that if we improve our level, to bring something that saves lives and money, there is a financial reward (for that).”

However, he denied that his goal is profit at any price — claiming that the vaccine cost the equivalent of “a meal” in rich countries, while being sold without gain to the poorest.

On the other hand, Bourla admitted that more developed nations like the United Kingdom had placed orders in advance and the availability of immunizers was initially limited.

Having to be stored at -70°C, the Pfizer vaccine has been difficult to deploy in countries with limited health services.

But within a month or so, Pfizer has announced it will launch a new formulation of the immunizer that can be stored for three months in a refrigerator, which, according to Bourla, would make a “huge difference” for countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Pfizer has also developed an antiviral pill, Paxlovid, which in tests has cut hospital admissions and deaths by nearly 90%.

It is expected to be approved in the US soon, and the UK government has agreed to buy enough for 250,000 patients.

‘Serious symptoms’

Pfizer is also conducting trials of the Covid vaccine in children under the age of five.

In October of this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Pfizer’s vaccine for children ages 5-11.

Immunizing this age group in the UK and Europe would be a very good idea, said Bourla. “Covid is thriving in schools,” he said. “This is significantly disrupting the educational system, and there are children who will have severe symptoms. So I have no doubts about these benefits.”

‘Right thing’

Bourla also took the opportunity to send a message to those who do not want to get vaccinated. “For those who are just afraid, the only human feeling stronger than fear is love,” he said.

“That’s why I’m always using this argument that the decision to take another vaccine will not only influence your health, it will affect the health of other people and especially the health of the people you love the most, because they are the ones you love will interact.”

“So take the courage to overcome your fears and do the right thing,” he concluded.

Recently, Bourla was the target of a series of fake news. Some rumors claimed that he had been arrested for fraud by the FBI (US federal police) and others that his wife died as a result of the side effects of the Pfizer vaccine. She is alive and doing well.

“In the first news, that I was arrested by the FBI, of course I laughed,” he said.

“On the second news, that my wife died, with a photo of her, I was very (angry). I was worried about my children, so I tried to call them and I couldn’t talk to my son.”

“What we had to go through is nothing compared to the lives that will be lost because of the garbage these people have published, because people will really think that my wife died because of the vaccine… and she’s fine — she’s great.”