you the latest nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 come from these television companies and more including charter communications. >> rod band is a force for empowerment. that's why charter has invested billions holding infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications, along with these television companies, supports c-span2 as a public service. >> hello, everyone and welcome to the national book festival. >> over the past 21 years and in partnership with the library of congress booktv is provided in-depth an interrupted coverage of the national book festival featuring hundreds of nonfiction authors and guests. and on saturday booktv returned to live and in person to the library of congress national book festival. all day long you will hear from

and interact with guests and authors such as librarian of congress carla hayden, journalist david maraniss, writer clint smith, and more. the library of congress national book festival live saturday beginning at 9:30 a.m. eastern on c-span2. >> it is my pleasure to introduce today dr. albert berula, the chairmanma and ceo f pfizer, nowadays a household name the last couple of years. dr. borio has worked advisor for more than 25 years and has become the companies 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 o of e companies cope vexing. dr. bourla recently named ceo yf the year by cnn business and the

2022 genesis prize laureate. we will be discussing about in the next hour but it's not going to be a conversation between the doctor and i. we would like it when on this call on zoom on youtube to also participate. let us a question to have for albert borba and i will try to ask and get as many of them so please go on the chat function and be engaged with this conversation.. we would appreciate that. dr. bourla first of all welcome. nice to have you here. i had to ask, i read the book. it's fantastic. it was be on a business book. itne really took me behind the scenes of what happened with pfizer and out this all came about. also nice glints and your personal life and your professional life. my first question, how the heck did you find time to write a book during what you been doing lately? >> that's a good point. you know, i had a lot of motivation. i wanted to do it. i had people that were pushing me to make timelines.

i was the one to be pushed and i alsoha felt that, actually the chapters are running very quickly. i would go three or four days and grind one chapter doing nothing else and then of course i would be easy with everything else until i find another two or three days to wrap up the other chapter. >> y righted? what was your motivation, what was yourha goal, and are you hay with the finished product? >> yeah, you know, the events that happened during the nine months change the course of history. i know that history is written by many different points of view, and i wanted to make sure that i set the record the way that i felt was happening. so that was a very big part of my motivation. the other one w was also, becaue of me being the face, the face of the company, all the

spotlights were on me and there were thousands of people to work on this project but maybe 30 or 40 really led this project. and all of them i was afraid that the names would be lost in history and it what to make sure that i leave a record of what michael did and what kathryn did and what everyone in this book have described what was exactly what they did.ar >> it is phenomenal, you're right it is a part of our history we are still living through. a personal question, at what point will you digest what exactly you done and we've all been through globally these last two 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

toto generate significant econoc value in the u.s. only its estimated vaccinations since 2021 2021 contributed 2.5 points of gdp. it's huge. and 10 million hospitalizations were avoided. but beyond t that i think what this achievement did to the world was that it was a victory of hope against darkness. it was brought back the feeling that human ingenuity can make a difference. it was what brought together again after maybe a year or two grandparents with grandchildren. this is i think the biggest impact thatt we had into the world, and i'm very proud of it. >> i know that you are ceo of a high profile company but is it uncomfortable for you, hasn't

been? you also suffered,ic countries d gone through some criticism. is it uncomfortable to n be of public figure so to speak? is not what you signed up for. >> no, it is. it was and it is uncomfortable. to the degree that i can have a positive impact and continue doing it and being out there and speak because i think comes with the territory. but clearly that also has an addition to the glory that brings, i know that the majority of the people, they think of me and the pfizer like kind of heroes but there is part also the people that they see on us the enemy. and because theyy don't believe that the vaccine was the way to go, and that has created significant issues on me and my family. >> threats to your safety as well i believe? >> oh, yes, yes. everything that you can imagine but also those who have been

victims of misinformation, according to several of these websites. i was arrested from fbi, and, of course, i was not. and i laughed only because the previous one who was arrested by the fbi was the pope according to the w same website. one of them said my wife died and she died after i forced her to take the vaccine which she did want to dos and die from complications. now you can imagine me trying to find my kids to let them know that what you're going to read is not right, believe me, your momso is good. so yeah, a lot of hardships that comes with this publicity. i >> it was candid revealing you writing about many of these issues in the book as well. you're right that you challenged your team to make the impossible possible. that's the title of your book as well. it sounds good for a book and pr team but there has to have been, there must've been some dark times there, he people even r

ownn building that the challengd you and didn't believe in what was happening. >> there were two different dimensions. one was that, and that eventually all the look to me the most difficult i was able to accomplish. very pretty soon i convinced everyone they they can do it.' the way to devour by convention them don't even think of failing because this option doesn't exist. the world will not be the same. we know if wef fail because sped how did you communicate that? working virtual, , was his overa zoom call? i know you're a guy, a leader who wants to touch and feel and see body language of people. >> yeah, it was all through zoom calls, through webex calls and they got most of the people who were working under them very well so that helped a lot. there were also several people the first time i started working with them that were introduced to me as people were members of one lab or another and we were in together on that. we all learned that's not an

obstacle. we can do it. we canan see, we can feel the reactions of the other by watching on the face and body language. >> for business leaders or any type of leaders watching this right now, what's your guidance? what would be your advice at how to motivate a team? >> i will tell you one thing i think that everyone needs to find a way to be able to motivate according to the purpose of what they want them too, do. .. e a unique capability to understand when you don't mean what you say. and you won't be able to 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 actually tenders to think that they cannot do it. they don't know that. and you don't know that and you

will be surprised if you ask them to do things that they look imposs >> albert. >> did you have an ah ha moment of when this was all going to work and what was that? albert: yeah, the way that the drug dis-.k works ises you do yr best to discover the best possible candidate that you think would do the job and we are all familiar with the terminology, but it is it's designed to prove beyond doubts with that the time and i feel that okay, we have it. all the way up to this, it was a very complicated project so there were moments of immense

satisfaction but also moments that it was a tremendous moral because i felt we were going to tail the project. several times i felt we were at the end of the project. >> can you describe one of the types where it was a phone call or zoom call where they said, dr. burla, this is not happening. albert: it was by mail or phone calls. it was very frequent calls. it was one of two moments and moments there were communications by phone or by mail or by zoom but there were moments that i think we cannot make it. weng manufacture it and we're running and there's no manufacturing process so we can't make it for example. >> what was your next move when you got that information.

albert: let's go back and see why we cannot make it and the events we'll overcome. we found a sign it could dis-centigrade and what are you talking about? we're trying to find solutions and there were so many things like that. but we felt if the whole truth, that's the end. they could describe the ups and downs of leaving but eventually we had a warrior's attitude and everybody was moving under failure is not an option. it's not i do whatever i can and i fail but the end of the world the way we know it. we need to go ahead. thenea we -- they d. they did. not id they d. >> november 9?

albert: yeah, november 9 for them and november 8 for me. a very small group of people and i'm behinded today and everything is behinded and everything is hitten in cold and security passwords and would always have the development and nobody knows and nobody can go and see. you need several people to be able to i get into their passwos so the data base can be unlocked. this is when we did that to get under the analysis. >> you write in the book you went to a conference in connecticut and everyone came together as a team albert: i realize hi went there and michael is the head of our r&d and it was the first time i met him since a year and a half or

whatever. it felt like what i was referring to and i was with him on video every day ten times a day for every day and i realize that, do you know, it's the first time admitting pressure. >> we talk about here, you say we w succeeded not because we we lucky but because we were prepared. albert: it's delivered and we were pretending for a moment like that and we didn't know it that this would be the moment but we have started in transformation of pfizer and a year and a half earlier and building new labs and increasing dramatically our digital expenses and greeting ai. all of that digitizing our

clinical program. all of that were part of developing infrastructure but we found it extremely handy when we had to use it to develop in record time life saving vaccine. vaccine that's the biggest thing with two years, a year and a half we were discussing what the culture of winning was going to be. it comes with some virus that was obsessed with starting forward and the equity and without them, i don't think the variable when we were challenged to do the impossible to be successful. h the infrastructure and divest. >> when you say divest other things in your portfolio,

there's big brands and advil and reminds me of all the brands you put to the side. albert: yeah, chap stick, and i iconic brands-over pfizer and it was marketing driven and all the sudden 75% of the revenues and we divested those and then we stayed in 5% of the revenues and smaller company but everything or almost everything we had driven by high end science. >> humor with you being the extroverted greek jew and one of the bigger executives there. albert: yeah, sometimes history play great games and ity was the perfect storm for us and the

mrna and i have asked our team to come with proposals how to develop a successful vaccine against coronavirus, and they came to me saying we should do it with mrna. we were mastering protein vaccines we were working two years from that in 2018. there was no time in history but then we'llod deliver any of the problem. when they told me that, i was surprised and challenged a lot. but their conviction was very high and they convinced him. for us, it was if we were deciding the mrna, bio-tech was the obvious partner and bio-tech

asked also for partners and i was asking what technology you think we should be using. we knew bio-tech and we were m watching together with mrna vaccine and we knew they were a fantastic partner, and we knew that the technology was ready to deliver a vaccine because of what we had seen during our work with the flu. we made the move. >> by going with mrna, you went shot, the moon shot here in terms of -- albert: by far, it was the one that we could give with the best possible product but the one that was by far the most risky. >> there's so much of this politically driven 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? albert: yes, with the pandemic and uncertainties, that will be. but i was thinking of because of the magnitude of the threat of this pandemic was representing for the world that social wars stand to ere arrowhead and we'll dot right thing and we'll take things out of political -- trying to politically advise it because that wasxi existential threat for the way we know now.

>> there's critics at the beginning of this segment and still are with ulterior motives officesser and profits went from $9 billion in 2020 to $21.5 billion last year and your own salary of $2.5 million. do you get offended or is this part of the job? >> it's part of the job. i'm not offended at all. whatever you do in the worship god, people will recognize your efforts and people won't. at last pfizer's reputation highest skyrocket and not good because it was driven down by the overall and it is now among the best in the world. i'm very cognizant of the reputation coming to someone in drops and use it in buckets and very cognizant of what we enjoy right now, which is the love and

admiration of the vast majority of more down the road. it can go easily down if we dot right things. if we don't dot right things. >> we talk abouthe the 7 billion people in the world and is there aer way, pfizer in terms of vaccine equity and charging it at cost to the poorer nations, is there a way to get it to the' poorer nations because it's not just the vaccine but the distribution, it's the infrastructure. is there a way for pfizer, to partner with someone or lead the charge to get intoin the countrs and improve their intraumaticture to provide them with those vaccines? albert: we must find ways to do that . righted now they're

administering theer vaccines ovr there and one thing that is true to drive minutes to the cvs or wall greens in your neighborhood to get a vaccine, the other thing is if you have to walk one day to go and may be the vaccine and the other thing to be they don'tt think they need any vaccine for some people. the case is very here .

they missed a opportunity to educate people and some basive infrastructure. there are not in need of huge buildings or hospitals or equipment. we just need the one person that knows how to make the vaccines around the country and it's our effort and i'll tell you again the effort was important and and instead of preparing education and the vaccine will be available but they can absorb them. >> we're getting a lot of questions for dr. albert on our chat. what's one thing that you hope readers take away from your book, dr. albert? albert: never thinkingg i have a greek ". quote or not a great quote but a quotek from a greek

philosopher. i think what the -- speaks more to the spirit of what made this move so possible is a quote from people that say a problem is not that we aim too high and miss. our problem is that we aim too low and hit. i think this is a wonderful, wonderful way to communicate thatng you can only hit thing is you think big and at the same time thinking of the problem and phasing in the fear of mediocre and you're aiming low and feeling happy about it. >> of courser,l well said. you have privy in access to what's next with the forecast

and everything? albert: one is specific and the other in general health specific and let's start with covid, there's a lot of work right now to try to stay ahead of the virus as t the virus is mutating but there's a very concerted effort to go to something even better. next generation, something that right now the goal is to be able to just with one dose to maintain at least a year of protection. so that we don't have to go through this situation every six months or every time they're saying this and we have to switch and get another shot. people will get tired of this and the compliance -- the number of the people that will comply with thes recommendations will o down. thise is what you're doing when it comes to covid. the second thing they're doing when it comes to covid is

treatments. i think the real gamel changer now even more than the vaccine in the present situation, it's easy to develop oral treatments because that means that the people that get the virus know that they're not going to be threatening or the chances of their lives being threatened or having to stay outside the work force. for two weeks and i truly think that we are entering the period of scientific renaissance. it's going to be a period where

major needs in medical needsul will find solutions. it is because of advances in biology and at the same timee advances in technology. the two of them are coming together to produce dramatically different effects. drug discovery replacing with design. no more drug discoveries and it'll be a design. you'll have clinical trials happening and those things happening for us to advance in a way more experienced way. science and pfizer solutions and many other visits.

>> we talk about what's happening now and in the near future withh perhaps once a year shots or something like that. there's 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? albert: i think it'll be difficult and those people are afraid and the more we insist on them and we exercise pressure to see them vaccinated, we are afraid they're forcing them to do something they're afraid. you can respond very much about it. thisis is a situation we're experiencing right now. i found f that the best way to y and convince those people is not

by using rational and the fear is maybe irrational and not with the data and the majority of people and it is stronger than fear and that's love. for people that you love the most. grand mom, the kids, the father and the life heart conditions, they are the ones that if you don't get vaccinated, you have a high chance to transfer to them and the virus can be terminal for them and that's the only thing that works right now. they've remained despite the

pressure of unvaccinated right now. >> there's thing shaping uper he in california and different on the east coast and different in florida, when you meet with leaders, you met with a lot of white house leaders from the previous administration and currentra administration, are ty making progress that you think is good progress? albert: i don't think they're making good progress out of politics and clearly the number of people unvaccinated would be way lower if that was not embedded in the political debate. because thatut confuse add lot f people and we leave that for a political statement and if you're left or right or having nothing to do with the same vaccination. had if we did that, things would

be way, way better. >> flights will require us not to wear masking anymore or give us that option.we is there a possibility in your mind that at the end of this year, we could be putting masks back on, we digress? albert: i hope not. there's so much you can do with public distance -- with social distancing public health measures. measures that affect the fundamentals of human behavior. many wonder but 76%, even more can be invisible and right they are vaccinated and we have treatments.

we can relax the measures and i hope will not happen is people go and maintain very new imperfections by getting their vaccine and still when may have symptoms, they'd check themselves for covid so they can get thehe treatments. if we do the simple things, we can live our lives the way wese used to. >> i ask this representing parents with young kids, which means well. i have a 4-year-old, at what point will my 4-year-old daughter will eligible to get the vaccine? are we close whether pfizer or another company? albert: we are close. next month we'll have our data un-behinded so we know what we have. we hope we'll have -- we know we have a safe vaccine because that's very easy to detect.

if that's true and i hope it'll materialize, they'll do it very quickly and we will be ready to make -- we have manufacturing rules. >> was there a setback becauseyo initially we thought for the younger kids, we'd be able to do it by march now and then it got delayed. what happened? albert: we were asked by the fda to submit data on the second dose. we know that this will be a toledos vaccine to be successful. however omicron affected that and v variants were less severe and more severe to have this and

more severe and it was the case for kids. for kids, a lot of them got infected and they ended up in hospitals. there was a lot of pressure for vaccines and maybewo we start wh two doses till we get the result of the third. we know they're good and they're waiting to see the data on the third dose. that's what confused people. eventually we feel we betteran wait because it's coming in a few week's time. we'll have a full set of goodt data served of everybody and we'll have them all. >> how did three companies manufacture the covid vaccine agree to work together?

good question, it's a big business here. albert: look i think if we work together and for example and we'll be able to do it alone and we'll be able to do it alone. moderna for the partnership with the u.s. government and the vaccine and also from the department with astrazeneca doing their own vaccine and if they're successful or not. there was a lot of collaboration that was forced. as for manufacturing, we started manufacturing very early days in the virus and you have months immediately and we start manufacturing them and there was a lot of good preparation about it. i think also though that competition also helped because

it's very clear that the scientists of moderna wanted to be first and the scientist of pfizer wanted to be first. that's a good thing because eventually whoever was the first one created alone. >> is this a business book. it's about fuser and taking us behind the scene and howth you made this breakthrough? it could be transferred to different industries? albert: i think so. i think that there are a reading what happened, one can go lessons that may apply or not in his or her situations in crisis or not. it's always good. to learn how other people resolve difficult problems. >> you talked about one thing that stood out to me, about many things that stood out to me in the book. one during the trump

administration when jared kushner was asking to deliver -- or perhaps change the delivery to prioritize the united states ahead of other countries. can you explain that. albert: jared kushner was late in the game and after the elections, he knew they were leaving and maybe december or january. hehe was increasing their quantities of vaccines that the u.s. received and there'll be $100 million and when the u.s. had them, you don't want to make $200 and we actually don't. then things it revolve and we're successful in venezuela and they wanted more. but we sent out everything to

this administration and in any case, we agreed to provide an additional million dollars and in the beginning, he was helpful to say the sign of confidence and we told them next 100 million doses was appreciated and said 100 million doses and whatever is there. they were saying it was for a concert, the part and now it is approved. so it needs to be there. these things were delaying things and it was very powerful to resolve them. but then he wanted all 100 million doses immediately and i said we don't have 100 million. no, everything made in the u.s. stays in the u.s.. i i cannot do that. we are only making in the u.s. and europe. we cannot just go to the u.s. and europe. we need to give to the whole

world. there's no other place. challenge is the administration albert: after the third dose, we'll go to a year of vaccinations and the whole thing the whole world comes up said down. everybody is trying to do the best and the same is they're very competent and they know exactly their stuff.

albert: i can't speak about them if they will approve it or not. they have toee see it first and then based on what they say, it'll make their decision or what i know we'll provide the data. >> usuallyor takes 8 to 10 years to get approved and tested and manufactured yet it took pfizer and these other companies months. how can you simply summarize why that happened? how that happened?

pfizer was making 200 million doses of vaccines every year. so i asked them to make 300 of the new vaccine but still they'll try to do it. you need to think and design everything. then the second thing is s you need to really do things in parallel and really to believe that nothing is impossible so a lot is going into trying to find

ways to materialize it just because some say it's impossible. it's my time to do that. 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. you're forced to go inside this looking impossible and you can do it and this is what happened. >> employees walk out or did you escort anyone out that didn't want to comply? albert: no, no, no: we didn't have that. in fact, everybody worked extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely diligently. they all wanted the best. they're the ones that made it down. the same people trying to help out with every obstacle we were

facing in front of us. >> albert, you're a pfizer lifer essentially in 1993 you joined the company. is this your swan song now or are you reinvigorated? albert: i think i'm reinvigorated every year and i'm becoming better and a better business person at the end of the year, i'm at the same level at the beginning i'll know as the year i have to go. so far i'm learning. >> what do you want to do next? inside the company or outside of the company in this book. albert: i don't know, there's a lot of things that can keep me intellectually stimulated. >> there's a glimpse of your person life in the book and that was nice with how things shaped your life and your professional

career from your parents and your mother had a near death experience andie also your kids. does your personal life shape your professional life? >> always. each one of us. not only the personal life but i think the family is what builds and character for each one of us. for everyone, the family is positive or negative. has a see veer impact. it's the impact. >> when you talk about your panters and your kids is that part of the culture you bring into pfizer? >> yes, i think me coming from south europe, i wouldn't say

close but more invasive. one is going into the life of the other and myself, i felt it was the best thing that happened to me that will come back and living with me for nine months and i don't think it's the samen for every parent and i know it was the same for my kids and that was victory. >> question from our viewers, mapping the human genome project a medical breakthrough here? albert: absolutely. the biggest breakthrough and the less it was taken and more on that one. this is where it comes and the technology race and it's billions and billions and billions of information. just by itself.

they'll process without the advancements in technology. >> albert, how are you sourcing your talent now? your up and coming researchers andre scientists and where are they coming from and the geographic spot andd how do you find your top people? >> i think it's so diverse and the immigrants in the native world and so many diverse with four or five religions in our event, 11 members too and we have it being important and looking around and the idea of

wanting the same and the reputation is so high and considered by so many heros and saviors of the world and people from all over the place are raising their hands to join. sources tell us and we are very, we are very lucky to have a lot of talent right now.as >> the instability in earn europe andra russia and ukraine, how did that impact pfizer? albert: doesn't impact pfizer directly but to the degree it is a material and the smaller o business and worry a lot about our people and there's a few people that take care of them and clearly if this is an event that worries all of us because it was unthinkable two months before and suddenly we see ahead of us a war unjustified that can

trigger dramatic consequences. that's why everybody brings back to mind a war. this is suddenly how things started and i'm very, very concerned. not about pfizer but about what does this mean for peace and for substantial >> as we wrap it up, a couple more questions as we end this section. you talk alaska the challenges that need to change now and that's a big question that we can talk about for hours and one thing that stands out to you, some of the challenges of what needs to change overall in healthcare. albert: i would say for me there'se one thing that patients paying for medical even having no, your honors and the fact to pay theirr medicines, it's way

higher prices than the preiszs that we are two of times: >> nothing really changed. i think that many multiple times you are almost there to find solutions but nothing happened. i don't think this decision is sustainable. what's next for pfizer as a company, what's on the horizon?

>> basically that is all of that areas thatt we are working very, very intensively and gene therapy and areas that are genetically modified and genetic diseases and so much medically and they'll provide that with you being ceo in january of 2019 not knowing how the workload will change aon few months late. >> no good luck. >> doctor, thank you for your time, we appreciate it. the book is fabulous and i hope everyone goes out and buys a

copyht of it and any comments fm you? i'll give you the last word? albert: thank you for this and on social for all your audiences for listening to us. >> "moonshot". first degree pfizer's race to make the vaccine. if you'd likere to watch more programs or support the commonwealth club's effort to making in-person and virtual programming possible, visit commonwealth club.org. i'm raj mathai, take care.