Nevertheless, Albert Bourla has been lobbying the U.S. government—as high as President Donald Trump himself—to skip the pharmaceutical industry tariffs, which Trump has threatened, in part as a way to shore up U.S. national security.
President Donald Trump’s national security concerns for the pharmaceutical supply chain are “legitimate,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Tuesday.
The chief executive, who is also the chair of the PhRMA organization, noted that these concerns go back to Trump’s first term and continued under former President Joe Biden.
“From my discussion with the highest level of the government, they’re confirming that this is their primary concern, and I think it’s legitimate,” Bourla said on a Tuesday morning earnings call. “I think no country wants to have critical medicines produced outside of the country.”
Trump is probing the link between the pharmaceutical supply chain and national security via a Section 232 filing with the U.S. Department of Commerce. The result could form the basis of the administration’s tariff policy.
Pfizer has accounted for about $150 million in tariff impacts for 2025, CFO Dave Denton noted. That number is included in Pfizer’s guidance already, and the company is “trending towards the top end” of that, he explained.
Bourla would not provide concrete guidance on what Pfizer expects. “We have made statements in the past. We have been burned,” he said. But he promised the company has detailed contingency plans prepared that will minimize the impact.
“I’m right now focusing more on the fact that we should not have tariffs, and only if we have [them] should we try to implement measures,” Bourla said. “I’m sure all companies are doing the same.”
The CEO was encouraged to see pharmaceuticals omitted from the broader tariffs that went into place on April 2. He said the import taxes were placed on “everything we can see or feel or dream, except two things: pharmaceuticals and semiconductor[s].”
Then, the administration moved on April 14 to conduct the Section 232 investigation. This move, according to Bourla, clarified the concern and made the potential impact more manageable.
“Clearly, there is [tariff] risk going forward, but it’s a very, very different ball game,” Bourla said.
The Trump administration produced a list of critical medicines during its first term that were being manufactured outside of the U.S. That has not yet been done this time around, but Bourla expressed confidence that “there is a very clear distinction as to what comes from friendly countries or what comes from adversary countries.”
This assertion was challenged by Evercore ISI analyst Umer Raffat, who noted that the broader tariffs have been placed against traditional allies. Why did Bourla think the same would not happen for pharma, Raffat wondered.
“It’s up to the government to decide what they want to do, but . . . the national security concerns is very clear in my discussions,” Bourla deflected.
The Right Decision
Elsewhere, Bourla and his executive team addressed the recent discontinuation of lead obesity asset danuglipron. The drug was cut from the pipeline two weeks ago based on a single asymptomatic incident of drug-induced liver injury. Chief Scientific Officer Chris Boshoff said the discontinuation “was the right decision for Pfizer based on totality of data.”
“Although we’re not 100% sure this is due to danuglipron, the risk was high enough for us to discontinue the program while still being committed to obesity and employing our global resources for other opportunities,” Boshoff explained.
The swift move was also a demonstration of the R&D program’s discipline. Boshoff took over the science organization on January 1; Bourla said he has moved swiftly to make his mark. Boshoff reiterated Pfizer’s commitment to obesity and cardiometabolic disease despite the loss of the lead program.
To replace the product, the business development team will be looking for efficacy, safety and market differentiation. Andrew Baum, chief strategy and innovation officer, said Pfizer is exploring incretins and other modalities, looking for assets that can improve on scheduling, tolerability, muscle preservation and more. The company is also considering commercial differentiation, which Baum clarified as the indications that Pfizer would pursue.
“The future will also become more personalized based on combinations addressing specific diseases associated with obesity and with metabolic dysfunction, including neurology, cardiovascular and respiratory,” Boshoff said.
