ALBERT BOURLA

When most people hear the name Pfizer, they think of a pharmaceutical giant. A company that’s been around forever. One of the few that can truly claim to be a household name. But behind all the corporate scale and global reach, something interesting has been happening at Pfizer. For the past few years, this 175-year-old company has been doing something you wouldn’t expect from an industry heavyweight: thinking and moving like a biotech startup.

That’s not just branding or PR spin. It’s real. You can see it in the way they’re restructuring teams, how they’re prioritising R&D, how they partner, how they approach science. Pfizer has always been a big player in pharma. But now, they’re making serious moves in biotech. And in the process, they’ve become a bit of a hybrid; part pharma legacy, part biotech trailblazer.

You could say it all kicked into high gear during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their vaccine, developed with BioNTech, changed everything. It wasn’t just the speed or the science. It was how Pfizer worked that made people take notice. They didn’t treat it like a standard pipeline project. They treated it like a startup does when it’s going all in on a moonshot idea. No dragging timelines. No death by internal review. Just focused, fast-moving science backed by deep resources and decisive leadership.

Of course, the BioNTech collaboration wasn’t just about being fast. It was about being smart. Rather than building an mRNA platform from scratch, Pfizer partnered with a smaller biotech that had already done the heavy lifting. That kind of collaboration used to be a gamble for big pharma. Now, it’s starting to look like the blueprint.

Since then, Pfizer has only leaned further into the biotech mindset. CEO Albert Bourla has spoken openly about wanting the company to operate with the agility of a biotech. Not just in how they develop products, but in how teams are built, how decisions are made, and how risks are taken. Internally, they’ve tried to cut down red tape. Cross-functional teams are getting more autonomy. Speed matters more. So does adaptability.

Their R&D hubs reflect that shift too. Places like Cambridge (Massachusetts), Groton (Connecticut), and Sandwich (UK) are no longer just satellite offices. They’re biotech engines, driving research in gene therapy, oncology, immunology, and rare diseases. These aren’t side projects. They’re core to where Pfizer wants to go next.

Take gene therapy, for example. A few years ago, Pfizer acquired Bamboo Therapeutics to strengthen its capabilities in this space. Since then, they’ve been expanding those efforts, working on treatments for conditions like Duchenne muscular dystrophy and haemophilia. These are complex, high-risk areas. The kind that require biotech-level focus and commitment. But Pfizer isn’t just dipping a toe. They’re in it for the long game.

The same goes for mRNA. After the success of the COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer didn’t stop with one win. They’re now working on mRNA-based vaccines for the flu, shingles, and even some cancers. Once you’ve built the mRNA infrastructure, adapting it for other targets becomes a lot easier. That’s part of why biotech loves the platform model; it scales. And Pfizer has the muscle to take it global.

Their biotech tilt also shows up in how they’re approaching partnerships and acquisitions. In the last few years, they’ve made a string of smart bets. Not just buying companies outright, but working with them early. Collaborating on pipeline assets. Sharing IP and infrastructure where it makes sense.

Here’s where the bullet list comes in, because a few key examples really help this land:

• Trillium Therapeutics: Strengthened Pfizer’s position in immuno-oncology with checkpoint inhibitors focused on CD47.
• Arena Pharmaceuticals: Brought in a promising set of therapies in immunology, especially for inflammatory bowel diseases.
• Beam Therapeutics and Voyager Therapeutics: Early-stage collaborations in gene editing and CNS-targeted delivery systems.
  
  

These aren’t low-stakes partnerships. Pfizer is going after frontier science; stuff that might not pay off for years but could completely shift the treatment landscape if it works. That’s biotech thinking. And it’s not just about owning everything. It’s about being plugged into the right innovation ecosystems and getting there early.

On the digital side, Pfizer has also been ramping things up. AI and machine learning are getting baked into drug discovery, clinical trial design, and supply chain optimisation. That last one may sound boring, but it’s critical. When you’re manufacturing and distributing at Pfizer’s scale, shaving weeks off production or delivery timelines can have a massive impact; especially when launching something new. Again, this is the kind of infrastructure advantage that most biotechs dream of. Pfizer already has it and is now using it to test biotech-style agility at scale.

Then there’s rare diseases and personalised medicine. Two areas that have long been the domain of smaller, more specialised players. But Pfizer is making it clear they’re not leaving those markets to others. They’re building capabilities around targeted therapies, gene-based treatments, and monoclonal antibodies. There’s real investment happening here; not just financially, but in focus.

And they’re not ignoring the global angle either. With initiatives like the “Accord for a Healthier World,” Pfizer is committing to make hundreds of its medicines and vaccines available to low-income countries at a not-for-profit rate. It’s not a move you often see from companies with billion-dollar blockbuster drugs. But in today’s biotech landscape, purpose and impact are becoming part of the value proposition. And Pfizer seems to be listening.

All of this begs the question: can a company like Pfizer really behave like a biotech? After all, it has layers of governance, global operations, regulatory weight. Startups don’t. But maybe that’s the point. Pfizer isn’t trying to become a startup. It’s trying to bring the best of biotech culture into a big pharma body. And that hybrid model; lean, fast, and still able to go big; might just be the future of the industry.

Of course, it’s not perfect. No transformation is. There’s always going to be tension between speed and scale, between risk-taking and shareholder pressure. But what Pfizer’s doing isn’t just interesting; it’s instructive. They’re showing that reinvention is possible, even at the top. And that legacy doesn’t have to mean slow.

So when we talk about biotech startups today, maybe we shouldn’t just look at who’s new and scrappy. Maybe we should also look at who’s evolving. Who’s adapting. Who’s taking the core of biotech; curiosity, speed, ambition; and trying to make it work at the next level.

Pfizer isn’t just playing in the biotech space. They’re helping define what it looks like when biotech grows up.