On March 19, 2020, as Covid-19 swept across the world, Bourla challenged everyone at Pfizer and its partner BioNTech—a German company focused on cancer immunotherapies—to “make the impossible possible”: develop a vaccine more quickly than anyone ever had before, ideally within six months and certainly before the end of the year.
Less than eight months later, on Sunday, November 8, they discovered that they had succeeded: Their combined phase two and three trials showed a 95% efficacy rate. In the spring, thanks to their work and that of the other companies whose vaccines have been authorized, 300 million doses should be available around the world.
It took a moon-shot challenge, out-of-the-box thinking, intercompany cooperation, liberation from bureaucracy, and most of all, hard work from everyone at Pfizer and BioNTech to accomplish what they did in 2020. Organizations of any size or in any industry can learn from these strategies to solve their own problems and to produce important work that benefits a broad swath of society.
On March 19, 2020, as Covid-19 swept across the world, I challenged everyone at Pfizer to “make the impossible possible”: to develop a vaccine more quickly than anyone ever had before, ideally within six months and certainly before the end of the year. Uğur Şahin, the CEO of our partner BioNTech—a German company focused on cancer immunotherapies—did the same with his team.
