Pfizer has issued a five-point plan calling on the biopharmaceutical industry to join the company in committing to unprecedented collaboration to combat COVID-19.

Dr Albert Bourla, Chairman and CEO, made the following statement: “In this troubling time, Pfizer is committed to doing all we can to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many companies, including Pfizer, are working to develop antiviral therapies to help infected patients fight this emerging virus as well as new vaccines to prevent infection and halt the further spread of this disease. Pfizer is working to advance our own potential antiviral therapies and is engaged with BioNTech on a potential mRNA coronavirus vaccine. We are committed to working as one team across the industry to harness our scientific expertise, technical skills and
manufacturing capabilities to combat this evolving crisis.”

Pfizer is making five promises that will help scientists more rapidly bring forward therapies and vaccines to protect humankind from this escalating pandemic and prepare the industry to better respond to future global health crises.

1. Sharing tools and insights: Pfizer is committed to making the vital tools available on an open-source platform to the broader scientific community and to sharing the data and learnings gained with other companies in real-time to rapidly advance therapies and vaccines to patients.
2. Marshalling our people: Pfizer has created a SWAT team of our leading virologists, biologists, chemists, clinicians, epidemiologists, vaccine experts, pharmaceutical scientists and other key experts to focus solely on addressing this pandemic.
3. Applying our drug development expertise: Pfizer is committed to sharing clinical development and regulatory expertise to support the most promising candidates these companies bring forward.
4. Offering our manufacturing capabilities: Pfizer is committed to using any excess manufacturing capacity and to potentially shifting production to support others in rapidly getting these life-saving breakthroughs into the hands of patients as quickly as possible.
5. Improving future rapid response: Pfizer is reaching out to federal agencies including NIH, NIAID and CDC to build a cross-industry rapid response team of scientists, clinicians and technicians able to move into action immediately when future epidemics surface.