Pfizer’s paradox: Albert Bourla walks a fine line as he tries to turn around 2023’s worst-performing big drugmaker

What hap­pened to Pfiz­er?

In 2022, the com­pa­ny made Big Phar­ma his­to­ry: break­ing $100 bil­lion in rev­enue, thanks to its Covid-19 block­busters. CEO Al­bert Bourla be­came the pub­lic face of the drug in­dus­try’s pan­dem­ic hero­ism, as he tout­ed plans to bring the “light­speed prin­ci­ples” from Covid to oth­er dis­eases.

A year lat­er, the pan­dem­ic shine is gone. Pfiz­er is the worst-per­form­ing large phar­ma stock $PFE of 2023, falling near­ly 50% and eras­ing near­ly $140 bil­lion in mar­ket val­ue. It has mis­man­aged Covid ex­pec­ta­tions, spent its pan­dem­ic wind­fall on deals that are eat­ing in­to its earn­ings but may not pay off for years, suf­fered a fail­ure for a much-an­tic­i­pat­ed obe­si­ty drug, and di­vest­ed — on the rel­a­tive cheap — an as­set that Roivant months lat­er turned in­to one of the best M&A flips of all time.

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