keep up with today's biggest events with live streams before proceedings and hearings from the u.s. congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. you can also stay current with the latest episode of "washington journal" and find scheduling information for c-span's tv networks and c-span radio plus a variety of compelling podcast. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. download it for free today. c-span now, your front row seat to washington anytime anywhere. >> it is my pleasure to introduce today dr. albert berula, the chairman and ceo of pfizer, nowadays a household name the last couple of years. dr. bera has worked at pfizer for more than 25 years and has become the company ceo in january of 2019 right before the pandemics of the timing was pretty incredible there. in his new book called

"moonshot: inside pfizer's nine-month race to make the impossible possible" it really takes us behind the scenes during the pandemic, the historic development, the testing and manufacturing of the companies cope vexing. dr. bourla recently named ceo of the year by cn and business and the 2022 genesis prize laureate. we will be discussing a lot in the next hour c but it's not gog to be a conversation between the doctor and ipa we would like edwin on this call on this zoom on youtube to also participate. let us to your questions you have and i will try to ask and get to as many of them. .. you here of the commonwealth club. i got asked i read the book. it's fantastic. it was beyond a business book. it really kind of took me behind the scenes of what happened with pfizer and how the salt came about also a real nice glimpse >> also a nice glimpse into your personal life and professional life. my first question, how the heck

can you find time to write a book with what you've been doing lately? >> that's a good point and you know, i had a lot of motivation, i wanted to do it. i had people that were pushing me to meet timelines, and i don't know what they want to push, but i was the one to be pushed and i also felt that actually the top rather quickly, i would go three or four days and doing nothing else and of course, i would be busy with everything else until i find another two or three days. >> why write it? what was your motivation? what was your goal, what was your point and are you happy with the finished product? >> the event that happened during those nine months, saying it's the course of history and i know that history is written by many during points of view and i wanted to

make sure that i set the record the way that i felt would happen. so that's a very big part of my motivation. the other one was also that because of me being the face, the face of the company, all of this was on me and that's not the one that this is eventually, where thousands of people that worked on this program, but maybe 30 or 40, but really less, and all of them, i was afraid that their names would be lost, and i wanted to make sure that i leave a record of what michael did and what katherine did and everyone in this book that i described exactly what they did. >> it's phenomenal, you're right, it's a part of our history that we're living through. >> a personal question, what point will you digest, exactly what you've done and that we've all been through locally, the

last few years? >> it's a good question because still i'm trying to digest it and clearly, i think it was something that not only saved a lot of lives, not only was able to generate significant economic value, in the u.s. only, it's estimated that vaccinations in 2021, contributed to.5 points of gdp, it's a huge and depending on-- beyond that, i think that what this vaccine did the world, it was a victory of hope against darkness. it was brought back the feeling that human ingenuity can make a difference. it brought back together, after a year or two, grandfathers and

grandchildren. this is, i think, the biggest impact that we had into the world and i'm very proud of it. >> i know that you're ceo of a high profile company, but is it uncomfortable for you, has it been, because you've also suffered, gone through some criticism here, is it uncomfortable to be a public figure, so to speak? it's not necessarily what you signed up for. >> oh, it is. it was and is uncomfortable and that i can be positive and being out there and speaks and it comes with the territory. but clearly, that also has, in addition to the glory that brings, the majority of the people, they think of me and pfizer-like kind of heroes, but there's a part of the people that they see us as the enemy and because they don't believe that the vaccine was the way to go, and that has created

significantly on me and my family. >> threats to your safety as well, i believe? >> oh, yes, yes, everything that you can imagine, but also, we have been victims of misinformation, according to several of these websites, i was arrested from fbi, and of course, i was not. and only because the previous one was arrested by fbi was the pope. and according to the same website, and one of them probably that my wife died and she died after the vaccine didn't want to do and died from combinations from the vaccination, you can imagine me trying to find my kids, to let them know that what they're going to read on the internet is not right. believe me, my wife is parents.

>> and you are candid and write about these in the book as well. >> and you challenged your team to make the impossible possible, the title of your book, too. there must have been dark times, people even in in your old building that challenged you and didn't believe in what was happening. >> there were two different dimensions, and eventually, although looked to me the most difficult, i was able to accomplish. pretty soon, i convinced evan ooh to look into it. and as a way by convincing them, there's no option, don't think of failing, because it doesn't exist. the world will not be the same, we know it if we fail because we have not asked them to. >> how did you communicate that. we were working virtual. was this over a zoom call? how do you communicate? i know you're a leader that wants to touch and feel body language. >> it was through zoom calls and thank god, most of the

people if they were working, i knew them very well and that helped a lot. and a lot of people the first time i started working with them. they were introduced to me of one or another, and we worked together on that and we all learned that, that's not an obstacle. we can do it, we can see, we can feel the reactions of the other by working on their face and their body language. >> for business leaders, or any type of leaders watching this right now, what is your guidance? what's your-- what would be your advice how to motivate a team? >> i would tell you one thing, i think that everyone needs to find the way to be able to, according to the purpose of what they wanted them to do. two things i will say, one is that always be authentic. people who have a unique capability to understand when you don't mean what you say, and you won't be able to hide

that, so, just tell them everything. the second thing, it is that people have a tendency to underestimate what they can and what they cannot do. usually, they have-- they think they cannot do that and you don't know about it and you will be surprised if you ask them to do things that they look impossible, how much if they not make it happen, they will come. >> did you have an a-ha moment of when this all was actually going to work and what was that moment? >> frankly, the a-ha moment is when i learned what it was, because we had the way that the drug discover and development works is that, you do your best to discover the best possible that you think will do the job and then we're all familiar with the terminology, but it is the final say, once you enter into that, you cannot say anything, all you have to wait

is see if it works or not. it's designed to prove beyond doubt if it works or not. it was only at that time that i felt that, okay, we have it. all the way up to there, there was-- it was a very complicated progress, so there were moments of immense dissatisfaction, but with also moments that it was to our morale, because we felt that, it was a disaster and that could kill the project. it was several times that i felt that we were at the end of that project. >> and one of those times, was it a phone call to you or a zoom call that said dr. bourla, this is not happening? >> the information to flowing to me either by mail or by phone or by zoom calls. i have very frequent calls and it was not one or two moments, so, there are moments that there were communications by phone or by mail or by zoom, but they were moments that i

think we cannot make it. we manufacture it and it's running, but i don't think that we have a manufacturing problem so we can make it, for example. and then we-- >> what would it be at that point when he got that information for you? what was the next one. >> why you cannot make it and let's go back and see what can be done in the event that they were overcome. or, we can't-- we found a sign that the product will not be stable. unfortunately, after a month, it could disintegrate and what are you talking about? and then we're trying to find solutions. so there were so many things like that that we felt that if they hold true at the end, but we could describe the options down that were, and eventually, we had a warrior's attitude. everybody was moving under the failure is not an option.

so, i did whatever i can, i failed, but the end of the world as we know it i was telling them so we need to go ahead. and then they did. they did, not i did, we did, they did. >> and then the a-ha moment, i believe it was november 9th of 2020. >> november 9th for you, november 8th for me and a small group of people. and it was blinded. everything was blinded and hidden in code and security password. as always with drug development, nobody knows and actually nobody can go and see. you need several people to be able to get into their pass words so the data base can be unlocked. and this is when we did that, we run the analysis and then i received a call, or a video call. >> and you write in the book, you went to the small conference groom in connecticut and went as a team in person,

shocking at that point. >> and actually, i realized when i went there, with michael, with the head of our r and d, it was the first time that i met him since here or whatever, and it felt like that i was with him because i was with him on videos every day, 10 times a day for every day, and suddenly realized. do you know it's the first time that we meet in person? >> we talked about here, you say we succeeded not because we were lucky, but because we were prepared. and that's a bold statement for a company your size. >> it is bold and i truly believe it. i think that we were preparing for a moment like that, we didn't know it. but this would be the moment. but we had started the information of pfizer two years

earlier by a year and a half earlier by divesting other businesses, increasing dramatically r and t expenses, increasing dramatically our digital expenses and all of that digitizing our clinical program, all of that were part of developing an infrastructure, but we found it extremely handy when we had to hues it to developing in record time, life saving vaccine. but i think the biggest i think thing that drove to the success was that for two years, a year and a half, we were discussing what the culture of the company should be and to have come with some -- with some values that started forward, the value of equity, and without them, i

don't think we would be able when we were challenged to do the impossible possible to be successful. so we had the right infrastructure, the right people, the right mindset. >> and when you say divest others of the portfolio or company, big brands, i mean, advil, remind me of the brands you put to the side. >> you name it, lipitor, centrum, the iconic brands of pfizer that were not any more recent, were marketing even and almost 75% of the revenue and we divested all of that and then we stayed 25% revenues, smaller company, but everything, or almost everything that we had driven by high end science. >> why partner with biontech? i know you said you had a special relationship. in fact, your humor comes out in the book, you say you're the

extroverted greek jew and combined with a muslim. >> yes, and sometimes play games and i think it's perfect for us, perfect combination. biontech, we decided first to go with mrna before we decided to go with, and i asked our team to come with proposals how to develop successful vaccine against coronavirus and they came to me saying we should do it with mrna. and to use any other technology because we were master in protein vaccine. mrna was the counter intuitive option, working only two years on that since 2018 and there was no time in history that mrna developed any as a product. so when they told me that, i

was surprised and then i challenged, say, look, but their conviction was very high and convincing. so for us if it was if we were deciding to go mrna, biontech wag the obvious partner and biontech-- at the same time i was asking our team what technology you think we should be using. so, we knew biontech because we were working with together with them on mrna on a flu vaccine and we knew they were a fantastic partner and that the technology is ready to deliver a vaccine because of what we had seen using our work with flu. so, we made the move. >> so by going with mrna and correct me if i'm wrong you went with the long shot, the moonshot here in terms of-- ments by far, it was the one that could give theoretically, the best product and by far the

one most risk. >> there's so much of this that's politically driven and regardless of what side the aisle that you're in, or on, were you surprised that still to this day that politics are driving much of what's happening with the pandemic? >> yes, i was surprised. i knew that the health care issues are always in the forefront of the political debate and with the pandemic like that, that clearly creates with uncertainties and anxieties, that will be magnified through the political debate, but i was thinking that because of the magnitude of the threat that this pandemic was representing for the world, that they would extend to their-- will do the right thing and that they will leave things out

of political, trying to politically drive it because that was extension threat for the way that we know or not. so i was surprised that eventually. >> there were critics, like you said at the beginning of this segment and still are, talking about there's ulterior motives for pfizer are pfizer's profits went from 9 billion in 2020 to almost 2 1/2x to your own salary 20-plus million. are you offended by this or part of the job now? >> no, it's part of the job and i'm not offended at all. whatever you do in this world, there will be people that recognize your effort and people that they don't. and at large, pfizer's reputation skyrocket. it was not very good before the pandemic because it was driven down by the pharmaceutical

industry, and it's now among the best in the world. and very cognizant that reputation comes to someone in drops, but you can lose it in buckets. and i'm very cognizant what we enjoy right now which is the love and admiration of the vast majority of all over the world and 7 1/2 billion can go easily down, if we do the right things. if we don't do the right things, and i'm treasuring these assets that we have that people like us and commitmented that everyone in pfizer to always do the right thing so that we maintain that at a high level. >> when we talk about the 7 billion people across the world. is there a way, i know that pfizer in terms of vaccine equity you're charging at a costs to the poorer nations. is there a way to get it to the poorer nations? it's not just the vaccine, it's

the institution and infrastructure. and is there a way pfizer, a way you can partner with someone and say we need to get it into the countries and improve their infrastructure so we can provide the vaccines? >> we must find ways to do that. right now, the obstacle for the poorest part of the world to vaccinate is the parts of the world, it's not vaccine's availability and it's not logistics since to arrive there, but it's infrastructure there, and administer the vaccines over there, and there is novak center. one thing it is to drive and diminish, to the cvs, walgreens of your neighborhood to get the vaccine. the other thing is if you have to walk one day to go somewhere to get the vaccine and it's very different conditions that they're living. and one thing it is to have population, but it is maybe 20%

are afraid of the vaccine or skeptical about its value and another thing to be in africa, where it's 80% of the population, they don't think that they need any vaccine. >> okay, so it's very high at that level. >> and we missed an opportunity to educate people, we missed an opportunity to develop some very basic infrastructure. and they are not in need of buildings or hospitals or equipment. they just need one person that knows how to administer the vaccine around the country. so very basic thing, but we could have if our efforts and focus was there. unfortunately, the efforts was on politics. why don't you give to the poor countries, instead of preparing with education, those countries, the vaccines would be available which i was promising that would be, that they can absorb that. >> we're getting a lot of questions for dr. bourla here

on our chat. what is one thing that you hope that readers will take away from your book? >> i would use one-- in every one that i have a greek quote and-- or it's not a greek quote, it's a quote from a greek philosopher. i think what speaks more to the spirit of what made this moonshot possible, it's a quote that says a problem is not that we aim too high and miss. a problem is that we aim too low and hit. and i think this is a wonderful, wonderful way to communicate that you can only if you think big. at the same time communicate that the problem that we are facing, it is mediocrity, with

the goal and setting it rather than setting the bar high. >> well said. you have privy and access to the best researchers obviously in your own company and other companies. what's next here? where do you forecast the next six to 12 months specifically? >> look, clearly there are two things, one is covid specific and the other is in general health specific. let me start with covid. i think there is a lot of work right now to try to stay ahead of the virus, as the virus is mutating constantly and creating these. but also, there is a very concerted effort to go to something even better, next generation. something that right now, the goal is to be able just with one dose to maintain at least a year of protection so that we don't have to go through this situation that every six months or every time that the variant changes, we have to treat and

get another shot. people will get tired with this and the compliance, the numbers of people that will comply with these recommendations will go down. this is what they're doing when it comes to covid. the second thing is treatment. the real game changer now with the vaccine is the present situation, it is easily available oral treatment because that means that the people that will get sick, either because they're not vaccinated or because they were unfortunate, the risk known to be threatening or reduce the chances that their lives will be threatened or they will have to stay outside the work force for two weeks or they will suffer the consequences of long covid, which is a very, very big issue. and the things now available, make sure that they will be easy for everyone to get there.

but i would think, also, it's nice to think about other complications. i truly think that we are entering a period of scientific renaissance. it's going to be a period where major needs in medical sphere and unmet medical needs solutions you can get in the year before. it's because advances in biology and at the same time technology. and the two of them, they're coming together to produce dramatic effects, artificial intelligence in drug discovery will replace discovery with design. and it's going to be drug design, and we will be able to have a clinical trials that are happening. so those things will help us to advance in way more exponential

way. science and science solutions. cancer and many other visits. >> you want to break some news here? are you on the verge of announcing something big? >> i'm going to say it's not going to be like tomorrow as a result we now have a cure of cancer, but it's going to be decade that a lot of the diseases-- let me put it that way. the disease will be very, very different at the end of the decade. >> we talk about what's happening right now and what's happening in the near future with perhaps once a year shots or something like that. there's still about a third of americans that are not vaccinated. how do we convince that third, which is a sizable part of our country, to get on board here? >> yes, i think it will be difficult. i think those people are afraid and, in fact, the more we insist on them and we exercise

pressure to see them vaccinated, forcing you to do something you're afraid, you can respond very emotionally. this is a situation that we are experiencing right now. i found that the best way to try to convince those people is not by using rationale because the fear is irrational, it's not looking at the data. the majority of people that are dying are unvaccinated. this doesn't work anymore with them. it is more to use another emotion, which is stronger than fear, and that is love. and for human beings and the way i talk to them, it is to tell them, that your decisions to vaccinate or not will affect not only your lives, will affect the lives of others and prom dominantly those you love the most, the grand mom, the grandpop, the kids, the father that has underlying heart conditions, they are the ones, if you don't get vaccinated, you have a high chance to

transfer to them the virus and they -- that can be detrimental to them. and that's the only thing that works, i think, right now. not to-- to remain despite the pressure unvaccinated right now. >> and do you still see how the politics is shaping up different here in california, the east coast, in florida. when you meet with politicians, you met with a lot of white house leaders from the last administration and the current administration, are they making progress that you think is good progress? >> look, i don't think that they're making progress unfortunately, and clearly, i think the number of people that would be unvaccinated would be way lower if that was not embedded in the political debate. and because that confused a lot of people. and we live in a situation where wearing a mask is a

political statement. if you are left or right, republican or democrat, it has nothing to do. it's about proven health care measures, the same with vaccinations to some degree. if we do have that, things will be way, way better. >> we are taking off our masks now across the countries and not to wear a mask or that option. is there a possibility in your mind the end of this year we could be putting masks back on, we digress? >> i hope not. i think that right now there is so much you can do with public distance, with the social distancing public health measures, measures that affect the fundamentals of human behavior, and to raise a limit. i think slowly, slowly we need to relax them not only because people are tired, which is a big part of the evasion because when they are tired they will not do it. right now, we have way

significant tools in our hands. a very big part of the population is vaccinated not as much as we wanted, but 76%, even more if you count those who had treatment, but if you get the disease you're not going to end up in hospital or high level of probability that you will end up in hospital will be very low level of probability that you will end up in the hospital. so with all of that, i think that we can start relaxing the measures and what i hope will happen that people will keep their immune protection by the vaccines. if we do the simple things we can live life the way we used to. >> i ask this representing all parents with young kids me as well. i have a four-year-old. at what point will my daughter be eligible to get in vaccine,

are we close whether it's pfizer or another company? >> i think we're close, next month we'll have the data unblinded so we will know what we have. we hope that we'll have-- we know that we'll have a safe vaccine because that's easy to detect. what is unblinded is how effective it is. i hope we will have a very effective vaccine. if that's true, and my hopes materialize then we'll find moo this day we'll do it the review very quickly and we will be ready to-- we are ready already with manufacturing, we're already manufacturing, the approval will make them available. >> was there a step back? initially we thought with the younger kids, march right now and then delayed. what happened? >> we were asked by f.d.a. to submit data on the second dose. we know that this will be for omicron. we need three doses to be successful, the same for kids

and adults and we know that this is the case. however, omicron affected disproportionately the younger kids and the pre previous variants were less severe-- this one is less severe omicron. for kids, a lot of them got infected and ended up in hospital. so there was a lot of pressure for maybe we start with the two doses until we get the results on the third. so why don't we submit the data on the second dose waiting, but we knew that they are good, waiting to see the data on the third dose. so that's what confused people. eventually, we felt that we better wait because transparency and full set of data is very important, and you know, it was coming in a few weeks' time. so, instead of march, now we're coming in april and so we'll have a full set of a good data

set that everybody can see transparency and then more. >> okay. we're getting great questions. how did three companies that manufacture the covid vaccine agree to work together? good question, big business here. >> look, i think the whole industry worked together, for example, we formed a partnership with biontech. we wouldn't be able to do it alone and biontech wouldn't do it alone and i think that moderna partnership with the u.s. government and nia helped them to do the vaccine. oxford formed a partnership with astrazeneca to do the vaccine, successful or not, there was a lot of collaboration that was formed. and also our manufacturing, we started manufacturing very early day. and the anti-viral, very few people know, but to do that

much immediately and we discussed and we started manufacturing for them. so there was a lot of good cooperation about this. i think, also, though, that competition also helped because it's very clear that scientists of moderna wanted to be first, as the scientists of pfizer wanted to be first, but that's a good thing because eventually whoever was the first came. >> is this a business book? i know this is book about pfizer and taking us behind the scenes how you made this breakthrough. is this also a business book that can be transferred to different industries? >> i think so. i think that there are really what happened, one can draw lessons that may apply or not to his or her own situation. their own business environment. in crisis or not. and so, it's always good to

learn how other people resolve the difficult problems. >> you talked about one thing that stood out to me about many things, that stood out to me in the book. when during the trump administration about jared kushner who was asked to deliver, perhaps change the delivery to prioritize the united states over some other countries. can you describe that, what transpired? >> yeah, jared kushner called me and got involved in this late, quite late in the game. i think it was already after the elections and he knew that they're leaving, maybe december or january, and his intention was that to increase the quantities of vaccines that the u.s. would receive, the u.s. would sign a contract with us for $100 million at that time. europeans had signed $200 million. when the u.s. signed the contract i told them repeatedly, are you sure you don't want to make 200 million

dollars? this is how much europeans are getting. we're sure we don't. then things went out and we were successful and they wanted more. and, but we didn't have because we had everything to the situation. in any case we agreed we'd provide additional 100 million. in the beginning jared was helpful, i have to say in terms there was a lot of unreasonable things that the bureaucracy was setting as to how to sign a contract. we told them, look, the next $100 million, if we have a contract, took us months to negotiate it, let's have 100 million in the doses. they're saying the first contract was concept. now it's approved and a different contract and these things were delaying things and he was very helpful to resolve that, but then, he wanted all

100 million immediately. and we don't have immediately, so everything made in the u.s. stays in the u.s., i cannot do that because we are only making in the u.s. and in europe so we cannot just give to u.s. and europe, we need to give to the whole world, there's no other place. i hear you, but i care for america. so that was basically the disagreement and eventually, we were able to found qualities because we increased production way more and eventually we ended up in a positive note. >> that's the previous administration. now with president biden and his administration. what's the biggest challenge with this current administration and what do you hope that will be better? >> look, our challenge is not the administration. our challenge is the virus. the biggest challenge is omicron, changed completely the whole planet. i was certainly after doing the third dose we would go to a yearly vaccination and the whole thing, the whole world

comes upsidedown. everybody is trying to do their best and the same is-- and i think they're very competent people, they know exactly their stuff. it's just that a lot of the decisions are not black and white, in the gray zone, it's not very clear which way will be the optimal way to go. so they had to make choices like all of us when we have to deal with the situation. i think they're doing very well, frankly. >> one of the questions from our viewers, do you soon approve or recommend the fourth shot like israel has done? >> i think we'll submit and have comparing data about it. i think there is a need and i can't speak about them if they will approve it or not. they have to see it first and then based on what they see they'll make their decision, what i know is that we will provide data. >> still, the premise, one of the biggest premises of the book usually it takes eight to 10 years, correct, to get

something approved, tested and manufactured yet it took pfizer and other companies months. how can you succinctly summarize why that happened, how that happened? >> first of all, it's not-- we didn't try to improve the current process of doing things. we had to reinvent them. if i was asking the people to make instead of 10 years, they would tri to do it by the current process, if you ask them in eight months, they have to think completely out of the box, and then manufacturing, i think it was second with the manufacturing. yearly, pfizer was making 200 million dollars of vaccine every year, i asked them not to make 300 of the new vaccine they never made and still trying to do it. and $3 billion of these vaccines so they had to reinvent everything and that's very, very big. you need to think from scratch and redesign everything, reengineer everything and then the second is, you need to

really to do things in parallel and really to believe that nothing is impossible. so, a lot of ideas are rejected without really going into trying to find ways to materialize it, just because it's impossible, why use my time to do that? if someone doesn't let you go and tells you, no, no, no, find a way to do this and find a way to do it then you're forced to go inside of the impossible and suddenly find ways to do it. >> any employees walk out or did you excourt anyone out who didn't want to comply? >> no, no, in fact, everybody worked extremely, extremely, extremely diligently. they all wanted the best, even those that they felt that cannot be done. they are the ones that

eventually made it done and once the first month, so many things that were thinking impossible, were made possible. that created a very different mindset in the remaining eight months so the same people were trying to do everything in every obstacle we were facing in front of us. >> you're essentially a pfizer lifer, and 1993. are you burned out? is this your swan song or are you reinvague -- invigorated. >> i think at the end of the year i'm at the same level as the beginning of the year i have to go and so far, i think i'm learning. >> what do you want to do next? whether it's within the company or outside of the company, outside of this book? >> you know, what i would like to do is to see grandchildren, but i'm not sure that my kids are very much, as they say, and

other than that, i don't know, friends, a lot of things that can keep me intellectually stimulated. >> we've got a glimpse of your personal life in this book which is nice, kind of how things shaped your life and your professional career from your parents, i know your mother's near death experience and also your kids. does a personal life shape a professional life? >> always. and with each one of us. not only the personal life, but i think the family is what builds the personality and the character for each one of us and for every one ever us, the family has-- negative not always positive, but has a severe impact. and that follows us for the remaining of our lives and the way that we think and act. >> when you talk about your parents and your kids, is that

part of the culture that you also bring in to pfizer? >> yes, i think me coming from south europe clearly there are family ties that are-- i wouldn't say closer, everybody has close family ties. one is going into the life of the other. myself, i felt it was the best thing that happened to me that my kids had to come back from college and live with me for nine months, right? i don't think it was the same for every parent and i know it wasn't the same for my kids, they didn't like it, but for me, it was that the big reward. yes, i'm close to my family and my friends. >> questions from our viewers now. was mapping the human genome project the beginning of so many medical drug breakthroughs here? >> absolutely. i think the biggest breakthrough of the last, say, 20 years was that one. as we start to wrap this up

now. >> and this is where it comes, this is where it comes and also the technology situation, because one thing it is to be able to unknock the human genome, but the human genome is billions and billions and billions of information that by itself so it's impossible to process it without the advances that they have in technology. so the two of them is what will bring the solution. albert, how or where are you sourcing your talent now? your up and coming researchers and scientists. where are they coming from? specifically in one geographic spot or how do you find your top people? >> i think you see, start from the top and you see this, and it's so diverse, so many immigrants to start with, there are more immigrants than-- and so many diversity, we have five religions in members, right? we have men and women--

we have every type of diversity. i think it's important that you have people from diverse backgrounds so the idea will be synergistic rather than the same. right now, particularly, because we have been able to-- our reputation is so high and because we are considered by so many the heroes, the saviors of the world, people from all over the world are raising their hands to join forces with us. and we are very lucky to have a lot of talent right now. >> and the instability right now in eastern europe and russia and ukraine, how does that impact pfizer? >> it doesn't impact pfizer directly, to the degree that it is material, we have smaller business, i worry a lot about our people there, but to have a few people, we take good care of them, but clearly, if this

is an event that worries all of us because what was unthinkable two months before and suddenly we see in front of us a war unjustified, but dramatic consequences for humanity. that's why everybody, brings back to the second world war because it's suddenly how things started in that period of time. so i'm very, very concerned, not about pfizer, but what does it this mean for peace and world stability. >> as we wrap it up, a couple more questions before we end this. can you talk about the challenges that need to change now in the health care industry? that's a big question. we could talk about that for hours, but one thing that stands out to you, some of the challenges that need to change overall in health care? >> i would say for me, there's one thing that's clearly not sustainable in the u.s. and

this is that patients are paying for their medicine. like they don't have insurance, although they have one of the best insurances in the world and it's the system that works, that everybody has to pay for their medicines out of pocket and have to pay in way higher prices than the prices that we are charging, for example, almost double. that needs to change. that needs clearly to change and find ways that medicines are way, way more affordable into the u.s. >> and i believe we have been talking about that for years, nothing's really changed. what needs to happen. >> nothing really changed and i think not only nothing really changed things became worse and i think many, multiple times you were always there to find solutions, but nothing happened. i don't think that that situation is sustainable. we need to change them. >> what's next for pfizer as a company? what's on the horizon? >> science and breakthroughs

that change the patient's life. we try to harness the science in the most creative and innovative ways possible. and we're trying to harness the power of technology and put it together, we're focusing on areas that they are representing significant issues to the world, cancer, infectious diseases and you saw now what happened with covid, heart diseases, metabolic diseases, obesity, that basis, all of that, are areas that we are working very, very intensively. guinea therapy and the areas that have to do with genetically-- genetic diseases, so, it's so much the unmet medical. so much that had the opportunity for us to provide solutions that i think it would be very good. >> was it good luck or maybe bad luck all of a sudden you being ceo january of 2019 not

knowing how the world was going to change a few months later? >> no good luck, no bad luck, it was meant to be. >> dr. albert bourla, we appreciate it, the book is fabulous. everyone go out and buy a copy of it, what happens for pfizer. any last comments for you, i'll give you the last word. >> thank you so much for your interest and thank you very much, also, for your audience for listening to us. >> moonshot, inside pfizer's nine-month race to make the impossible possible again, we encourage you, and if you'd like to support the commonwealth to make virtual possible, rivet commonwealth club.org, take good care. >> live sunday, in depth, uc

berkeley to talk about ronald reagan's career and political movement. he's the author of several books, age of reagan series, greatness and patriotism is not enough, about the scholars who changed the course of conservative politics in america. join in the conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets. in depth with steven hayward, live sunday at noon eastern on book tv on c-span2. ♪♪ >> weekends on c-span2 are a intellectual feast. every saturday, american tv with america's stories. brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors, funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more, including comcast. >> do you think this is just a community center? no, it's