COVID-19: Pfizer Chief Says Company Aims To Ship Vaccine Within Hours Of Approval | World News

The Pfizer director told Sky News that his company is ready to ship doses of its COVID-19 vaccine “within hours” after receiving official approval.

Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said his company would apply for permission from regulatory authorities around the world “very, very soon, in a couple of days” and then it was ready to start shipping the first of 20 million doses of vaccines that have already been developed.

He told Sky News that the doses would be shipped to countries as soon as their health authorities gave permission, increasing the possibility of a “race to regulate,” but said the world would have to be “patient” because demand would exceed demand. offer.

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“The light is real, there is light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

“I think the second half of 2021 will be a very different experience for many of us.”

Bourla spoke to Sky News exclusively shortly after his company completed its Phase 3 study on its COVID-19 vaccine, created in partnership with German company BioNTech.

The study showed that it was 95% effective, a figure that he described as “spectacular” and “a great moment for science but, more importantly, for humanity.” He said the day he was told about the success of the vaccine was “the brightest day of my life.”

His company has already produced more than 20 million doses of the vaccine and he expects that number to reach 50 million by the end of the year. Another 1.3 billion doses are planned to be manufactured in 2021.

Before it can be used, the vaccine needs regulatory approval from health authorities.

Mr Bourla said: “It is a matter of days before we request to send the requested information to regulatory bodies around the world. Then it is your decision. They should take their time and follow their processes.”

“Once they give us the green light, our goal is to start shipping in a couple of hours.

“The world’s leading regulatory authorities listen to each other, but they have scientific power.

“They are independent. One agency is unlikely to take time and another to reach a conclusion much faster.”

However, Bourla confirmed that his company would react to each decision in turn, meaning that the faster a country grants regulatory approval, the faster it will receive the vaccine.

“If someone approves faster than the other, then I think the ethical thing is to start sending vaccines to the citizens of this jurisdiction because every day means lives,” he added.

The Pfizer boss prediction is that “if we can vaccinate the population, I think we can get back” to normal life, but he urged patience and caution.

“Until the moment we achieve herd immunity, people must be very careful. They must follow the instructions of the health authorities: wear masks and respect social distancing,” he said.

Given that each person requires two doses of the vaccine to be effective, the company’s estimate of 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021 would only cover about 9% of the world’s population. So would you consider sharing production with rival companies?

“Oh yeah, we are not limited by our own infrastructure,” Bourla said.

“It is very challenging to transfer manufacturing to GSK or Sanofi. It is not that easy. But we will explore every possible avenue. That will need to involve other manufacturing networks of other corporations.”

He said he would also offer support to other companies, working on separate vaccine projects, and said that the level of collaboration in the industry “is something that will redefine the industry right now, for the world and for all of us, there is only one competitor. – the virus “.

Bourla said the poorest countries would receive the vaccine “not for profit”, which means “the lowest possible price so that we can make it accessible to them.”

He said that Pfizer had already worked on contingency plans in the event of a customs disruption caused by Brexit.

“I don’t think it is a secret that our company, along with the entire business world, is not fascinated by the idea that the UK will secede from Europe, but it is the will of the UK people and that we have been for. working years to come up with a solution when this transition occurs, “he said.

During our conversation, Mr. Bourla, who is Greek and has worked for Pfizer for 27 years, was flooded with optimism and happiness. There was only one moment when his mood darkened, and that was when he reflected on the experience of one country: the United States.

“Something went wrong and that something was in the United States, and that was the politicization of this process,” he said.

“It became a political statement: whether you wore a mask, whether the vaccine would come quickly or not. That didn’t help at all.

“Everyone started discussing scientific issues with political rather than scientific terms, and people got confused. They didn’t know who to believe, or what to believe, and that is the situation we face now.

“I hope that everything we did is a demonstration of the maximum transparency that we put, all together as an industry. We follow the strictest guidelines. We publish the protocols, we begin to publish the data.”

He also sent a message to those who had doubts about the value of vaccines, saying that anyone who rejects a vaccine runs the risk of “becoming the weak link that allows this virus to replicate. I hope that many of the people who were previously skeptical reconsider. ” “.

My last question for him was about his own reflections, about the leadership process of Pfizer, a company valued at more than $ 200 billion, during this tumultuous year.

It was only his second year as CEO of the company, but he told me that the pressure “was not at all the political pressure that some people were speculating, but the pressure of billions of people, millions of companies and hundreds of governments: they are investing. ” in our industry, at Pfizer, to find a solution, to put it on their shoulders. “

“The moment I got the call to say we had an effective vaccine … and ten minutes later they informed me that the level of efficacy was 95.96%, it was the brightest day of my life,” he said.

“I couldn’t put into words the relief and the sense of purpose, but I felt right now that this is a decision that determines the future of the world, not my company or my family. And I was very lucky to be in this position, and to be able to do what I did. “