51Bloomberg Businessweek March 8, 2021
had validated 36 syringe-needle combinations that could get the
extra dose out. “It would be criminal if we can use six doses,
and we are throwing away one vaccine that can save lives right
now,” he told Bloomberg in late January.
The modification was a huge win for Pfizer. The company
had promised to supply the U.S. with 100 million doses by the
end of the first quarter, and it now says it can provide 120 mil-
lion. Because nations pay by the dose, the move also delivered
an instant 20% price hike per vial.
W hen Bourla took the helm at Pfizer in January 2019,
his mission was to get the company to focus on block-
buster drugs and to fend off a potential battle with
the Trump administration over drug pricing. The corona virus
immediately gave him a new focus. Pfizer’s little-known part-
nership with a German biotech turned it into a hero of the
pandemic. There was considerable doubt that mRNA vaccines
would work, but Bourla’s willingness to gamble on the new
technology paid off.
While Israel was swimming in Pfizer vaccines in late January,
other countries were struggling to find out when their deliver-
ies would resume. On Jan. 8 the EU said it had doubled its order
by securing the purchase of another 300 million doses. A week
later, Pfizer announced the supply cut and the Belgian shut-
down. Within days, it informed officials in Canada—which had
recently doubled its order to 40 million shots—that the coun-
try would receive no doses the following week. Prime Minister
Trudeau spoke with Bourla on Jan. 21, but the call didn’t unlock
additional supplies. Desperate for doses, he agreed to take
vaccines from Covax, the facility backed by the World Health
Organization to provide 2 billion doses to low-income coun-
tries. Canada was the only Group of Seven country to do so.
Opposition politicians accused him of grabbing doses meant
for countries that couldn’t afford to do bilateral deals.
Bahrain, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia also reported delays
in shipments. “Pfizer supply has been a global challenge,”
Amer Sharif, head of Dubai’s Covid-19 Command and Control
Centre, told Bloomberg TV. “There have been a lot of discus-
sions with Pfizer representatives in the region.” Oman was cut,
too. “Do not panic,” Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Saidi, Oman’s
health minister, urged at a press conference on Feb. 1. “We
were assured that the next consignment will be here before
the middle of this month.”
The Gulf states have weathered the delays without major
consequences, because their rates of infection are relatively
low. Mexico, with surging cases and the world’s third- highest
number of deaths, has felt Pfizer’s supply cut more pro-
foundly. Having agreed in early December to buy 34 million
Pfizer doses, the nation started vaccinating in late December,
the first country to do so in Latin America. Then Pfizer’s ship-
ments stopped for three weeks, until roughly 500,000 doses
for health-care workers arrived in mid-February. It hadn’t even
started vaccinating the elderly. On Feb. 2, Mexican Foreign
Minister Marcelo Ebrard criticized Pfizer for holding back
doses “that are already signed and paid for.”
The world was waiting for Pfizer to retool its sprawling
facility, the size of several sports stadiums, on the outskirts
of the tiny Belgian town of Puurs. Last year, Pfizer hired sev-
eral hundred more staff, bringing the total to more than 3,000,
as it geared up for production. That wasn’t enough to keep
up with the crush of orders. The partial closure of the plant
lasted almost two weeks.
“When there is a question of death and life, when there is a
question of the global economy, the demand will always be big-
ger,” Bourla says. “You will get complaints.” Pfizer wasn’t alone
in cutting supplies to Europe—AstraZeneca Plc later also fell well
short on its promised deliveries to the EU—but Europe was rely-
ing on the American company to start its rollout. “There’s no
doubt in my mind that there is anxiety, there is stress, there is
pressure,” Bourla says. “The voices are becoming louder, and
people will try to find the scapegoats.”
In the Rome region, the Pfizer cuts delayed the vaccine
campaign for people older than 80 by a week, with first shots
administered on Feb. 8. The knock-on effect means some of
the most vulnerable are waiting until spring to get their first
doses. Salvatore Parisi, 94, a retired Rome courthouse clerk,
is sheltering at home until his April 3 appointment at a hos-
pital for his first Pfizer shot, with a second dose scheduled
for April 24. He’s holding out hope that doses might become
available sooner at his family doctor’s office. “Every week we
call. ‘Is there something new?’ ‘No, no,’ ” he says via telephone
to questions relayed by his 79-year-old wife, Maria Sinibaldi,
because his hearing isn’t what it once was. “I’m a little scared
but not too angry. I’m just waiting for a call from my doctor.”
The EU had developed a strategy of pooling vaccine pro-
curement across the 27 member states. It signed supply
deals with six vaccine developers. With Pfizer, the European
Commission agreed to a framework for supplying countries
quarterly, leaving week-to-week decisions to the company
and each nation, says Stefan de Keersmaecker, a commis-
sion spokesman. When Pfizer made its cuts in January, that
arrangement led to a patchwork of supply gaps across the
Continent, which caused anger to mount against the drug-
maker. A Pfizer spokeswoman said the cuts were made with
the understanding that the Belgian factory revamp would lead
to “significantly increased volumes” before the end of March.
EU member states also agreed not to negotiate bilateral
agreements with drug companies. That didn’t stop Germany
from striking a separate preliminary agreement with BioNTech
for 30 million doses, after it gave the company a €375 million“When there is a suggestion of
death and life, when there is
a question of the global economy,
the demand will always be bigger.
You will get complaints”