Albert Bourla (Greek: Άλμπερτ Μπουρλά, born October 21, 1961) is a Greek-American veterinarian and the chairman and chief executive officer of Pfizer, an American pharmaceutical company. He joined the company in 1993 and has held several executive roles across Pfizer's divisions. Prior to becoming chief executive officer, Bourla served as chief operating officer.
In addition to the boards of Pfizer and the Pfizer Foundation, he serves or has served on the boards of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, Catalyst, the Partnership for New York City, and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Bourla is also a member of The Business Council and the Business Roundtable. He engages often with business leaders such as Bill Gates.[2]
Bourla was motivated by an early love for animals and medicine and is credited with reshaping Pfizer to be a company focused on research and development and branded patent-protected prescription drugs. He is also credited with helping the development of Improvac, which eradicates boar taint, and for refocusing Pfizer's vaccine division to focus on staphylococcus, clostridioides difficile infection, infant diseases, and the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. He opposes government interference in pharmaceutical pricing, which he believes would hamper spending on development of new drugs.[2]
Early life and education[edit]
Bourla was born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece.[3] His parents, who were Sephardi Jews, were among the 2,000 of 50,000 Jews in Thessaloniki to survive the Holocaust; his mother was minutes away from execution by firing squad when she was spared via a ransom paid to a Nazi Party official by her non-Jewish brother-in-law, while his father happened to be out of the Jewish ghetto when the residents were taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp and went into hiding, never to see his parents again.[4][5]
Bourla joined Sephardic Heritage International in DC (SHIN-DC) on January 28, 2021, where he told his Greek Sephardic family's story of tragedy and survival at the organization's Annual Congressional Commemoration for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, alongside remarks from Her Excellency Alexandra Papadopoulou, Ambassador of Greece to the United States.
Bourla earned a doctorate in the biotechnology of reproduction at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki's Veterinary School in 1985.[2][6] He left Greece with his wife when he was 34 after a promotion within Pfizer and since then he has lived in seven different cities, in four different countries.[7]
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