the times | Saturday November 14 2020 1GM 61The ManifestoBusiness
in parliament over the deal. In a
“highly charged environment”, MPs
asked fair questions, but the level of
opposition was “strange”, given that
Astra was not mainly a British
company. “It was one-third American,
one-third Swedish and one-third
British... The UK had changed its
taxes to make it an attractive place to
invest so it seemed a little
schizophrenic, the: ‘We’re British. We
want to be world traders. We invite
capital in. We want to compete.’ And
then: ‘No, not if it’s these companies.’
“I don’t, in retrospect, know what
more I could have done. I didn’t want
to overpay and eventually the taxreform was made and so sometimes
the best deals are the deals you don’t
do because when they changed the
taxes in the United States it removed
a lot of the reasoning to redomicile.”
Two years later, another attempted
tax inversion takeover, this time of
Allergan, based in Dublin, valued at
$160 billion, was blocked by the
Obama administration after an
“arbitrary” change in regulations.
Then, in 2018, Pfizer was forced into a
public climbdown to halt some price
increases after a tweet from President
Trump saying that the company
should be ashamed. The intervention
from the White House was an
overreaction, in Mr Read’s view, but
one on which Pfizer was willing to
compromise.
The political setbacks may have
grabbed headlines, but he is satisfied
with his eight years in charge. After
being promoted to lead Pfizer in 2010,
having worked his way up via
leadership positions in Latin America
and Europe, he returned the company
“to our roots as a pharmaceutical
company”, revitalised its drugs
pipeline, began the break-up of the
group and tackled a culture that had
lost its way, typified by memorable
“Own It” coins handed to employees.
Since stepping down in 2018 as
chief executive and a year later as
chairman of Pfizer — a company of
such size it “consumes almost every
minute you have” — he has built a
portfolio of directorships, including at
Avatera, a robotics surgery company.
He is now enjoying the relaxing pace
of business and leisure, playing golf,
reading and living in Florida and
Connecticut. His father turns 100 in
April and he is hoping to return to
Britain for the occasion, hopefully
aided by the arrival of the vaccine.H
ours after Pfizer
announced that it had
made a breakthrough in
its efforts to produce a
vaccine to combat the
coronavirus pandemic, Ian Read
recalled the decision two years
previously that paved the way for this
week’s dramatic news.
Back then, the Scottish-born chief
executive and chairman of the giant
American drugs company made the
crucial call to “make a foray” into
experimental modified mRNA
technology to bolster its vaccines
business. He was, he said, “intrigued
by the opportunity”. That, in turn, led
to Pfizer’s collaboration with
Biontech, of Germany.
Initially, the $425 million research
and development partnership was
focused on flu, but when Covid-19
emerged shortly after Mr Read, 67,
had stepped down as Pfizer’s
chairman last December, the pair
entered the race to develop a vaccine
for the new and deadly disease. Mr
Read believes that the credit for their
subsequent success lies with the
company’s management, led by
Albert Bourla, 59, his successor in the
twin chairman-chief executive role,
who committed “huge amounts” of
capital to the effort, and former
colleagues, “who worked night and
day” to get to this point.
There is a long way to go, obviously.
Pfizer plans to produce up to
50 million doses this year and up to
1.3 billion in 2021. Britain has ordered
40 million doses and the NHS is
preparing for mass vaccinations. And
after a year of lockdowns and first
and second waves of infection, “if
they meet those production forecasts
and people take the vaccine —
because there is a certain reluctance
in society to take vaccines — then I
think it would return us back to
normality. Or pre-Covid, if you want
to call that normality.”
There remain significant
uncertainties, too, including over
pending safety data, the requisite
emergency regulatory authorisation,
the cost of manufacturing a novel
technology at such huge scale and
then distributing the vaccine in cold-
chain storage. Then there are
questions about the virus itself,
whether it will mutate and how long
protection will last.
Mr Read, though, is confident. “All
of that can be overcome. Humanity
has the ingenuity to be able to
distribute this vaccine.”
In his view, the next big issue is
how to ensure that the vaccine is
administered to as many people as
possible. Have governments the
power to order mass vaccinations?
“Probably not. But do they then say
that if you want to go to school, to
university, you have to be vaccinated?
If you have a vaccination, if you have
a card showing you’ve been
vaccinated you’re free to travel, you’re
free to go to restaurants?”
Building societal trust of Big
Pharma was a priority when Mr Read‘We do great things for humanity
but ultimately it must be paid for’
Ex-Pfizer boss who laid
groundwork for new
Covid-19 vaccine, tells
Alex Ralph industry
needs to build trust
Ian Read leaves a parliamentary hearing on the planned takeover of Astrazeneca by Pfizer in 2014, an environment he saw as “highly charged” and “a little schizophrenic”was leading Pfizer, but it was one that
met with limited success.
“Ultimately, there is still work to be
done for society to completely
endorse the value of innovation and
how to pay for it.”
“Paying for it”, or drug pricing, was
an issue for the drugs sector then and
is again now, given the race by global
corporations built on profit —
alongside academia and government
— to discover, produce and deliver (or
sell) vast quantities of a vaccine that
the world is demanding without
delay. Pfizer and Biontech’s
product, which has received far
less government funding than
others, is being sold for a profit,
although Pfizer has said that
the price will reflect the
“extraordinary times” we live in
and Biontech that it will be
“well below” market rates.
Mr Read accepts that the
sector has not always
communicated well and
has been “tarnished
somewhat by our own
actions in being remote
from society”, but argues
that it has been greatly
misunderstood. An
industry allowed to
make a return on risk
investments had made
“huge strides for society
and humanity since
the 1940s” and its
business model “has
proven to be very
effective in creating
new and better
treatments”.
Mr Read’s time at the
top of Pfizer was punctuated
by run-ins with politicians
where the company’smessage was lost. It
aborted a £69 billion
takeover attempt of
Astrazeneca, its London-
listed rival and peer, in
2014 after a staunch
defence from Pascal Soriot,
61, Astra’s chief executive,
supported by MPs and the
scientific community. There
were concerns over the
future of jobs, the UK drugs
industry and Pfizer’s tax
incentive to redomicile to
avoid American corporate
taxes on overseas earnings.
Mr Read was questionedQ&A
Who is your mentor?
My father, who will be
100 next April and I
hope to come back
to Britain for his
birthday
Does money motivate
you?
Yes, the financial
security
What is the most
important moment
in your career?
My first discussion
with the Pfizer board
on taking the
chief
executive
role
Who do you
most
admire?Winston Churchill. He
managed to convey a
vision to society and to
voters and I think he
had high integrity
What is your favourite
TV programme?
Star Trek, below
What does leadership
mean to you?
Getting people to
commit their
extraordinary efforts to
a vision: our vision was
to become highly
productive in delivering
life-changing therapies
to humanity
How do you relax?
Reading fantasy, sci-fi,
physics books and
autobiographies and
playing golf, although
everybody has told me
my handicap has not
improved since I retired
from PfizerCV
Age: 67
Education: Imperial
College, BSc chemical
engineering
Career: 1978:
operational auditor,
Pfizer; 1985: Pfizer’s
chief financial officer,
Mexico; 1993: country
manager, Brazil; 1996:
president of
international
pharmaceuticals group,
Latin America; 2000:
executive vice-
president, Europe;
2010-18: group chief
executive; 2011-19:
chairman, Pfizer; 2020:
director, Avatera
Medical
Family: Married, two
childrenFACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/EPA