Specialist
Former VP & Lead at Pfizer Inc
Agenda
- COVID-19 next-generation vaccine update – Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), AstraZeneca (LON: AZN), Pfizer-BioNtech (NYSE: PFE) (NASDAQ: BNTX) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ)
- Pfizer's strategies, including implications of a more efficient supply chain compared to peers
- Challenges and unknown variables surrounding mutant variants, breakthrough infections and regulatory hurdles
- Outlook for H2 2021 and beyond
Questions
1.
What are your thoughts on the clinical data from the COVID-19 vaccine players including Pfizer, Moderna and J&J [Johnson & Johnson]? They all seem to work, but are difficult to compare.
2.
How have the COVID-19 vaccines been working in the real world thus far? There has been a sharp decline from 91.7% to 79.8% in vaccine effectiveness against infection, beginning in May 2021 when the Delta variant became dominant.
3.
What about the Delta variant is so different from other variants? How is it changing the calculus?
4.
What do you think about each of the vaccines’ respective efficacy against different variants, such as the Alpha and Delta variants? What are the vaccine efficacy considerations if Delta is 60% more transmissible?
5.
Given that Israel has already begun offering booster shots, could you walk us through the real-world data from Israel and its importance as a benchmark for other countries?
6.
Could you opine on what happened at the recent FDA and ACIP [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] meetings and the announcement from the Biden administration to recommend a third COVID-19 shot starting in fall 2021 for adults who are fully vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna vaccines?
7.
Given that the mRNA vaccines are the only ones in the recommendation for a third shot, what does this mean for people who received the single dose of J&J’s vaccine? What are the unknowns here? Will they need a booster shot as well?
8.
Is the government recommending a third shot or is it not calling this a booster quite yet?
9.
Now that the COVID-19 boosters are being recommended among the general population, are there any parallels we can draw to the flu shot business?
10.
What are your thoughts on the profit potential of booster shots for players such as Pfizer and Moderna? What may be the limiting factors here? What more is needed to draw better conclusions?
11.
Do you think it is likely that the US government will continuing paying for most or all of the shots administered in the country, or could there be a switch over to private health insurers? What would the different outcomes in profit potential be?
12.
You mentioned vaccines needing to be reconfigured for Delta. Could you further opine on the science behind that or where you got that information?
13.
The CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has gone quiet around the concept of herd immunity, as other sources speculate on how the world may never reach herd immunity against COVID-19. What are your thoughts on this? What might be the implications if we can’t reach herd immunity?
14.
What long-term considerations should we monitor in regards to the COVID-19 vaccines once the dust settles around booster shots? Do you think these vaccines will have long-term protection?
15.
Our currently available vaccines are premised on the virus’s sustainability function, so regardless of adaption and variants, they should prove effective. Why would we need to consider reconfigurations of vaccines and how is the Delta viral load overcoming this scientific premise?
16.
Do you have any closing thoughts on the developments with COVID-19 and what we should expect from the next generation of vaccine candidates as the situation evolves?
17.
Is there anything else we have not spoken about that you think is important to highlight?
