Inside STAT: How Pfizer's top scientist helped invigorate the lumbering drug giant

(MIKE REDDY FOR STAT)

Pfizer’s future is all about R&D. Even though it makes some $40 billion in annual sales, the company is looking to build itself into something new. “These are deliberate steps we are taking to make Pfizer a very different company,” CEO Albert Bourla said on a recent call with analysts. Much of the responsibility for the revamp lies with Pfizer’s R&D chief, Mikael Dolsten, an avid chess player and one of the longest-serving research chiefs in pharma. In the decade before Dolsten took the helm in 2009, 11 Pfizer molecules reached the market as approved drugs. That number since has been 13, an 18% improvement. Dolsten sees R&D like a chess game — strategic but slow — and for Pfizer, this means betting on Dolsten’s strategy. STAT’s Matthew Herper has more here.