Partnerships Articles

Programs & Initiatives

Three Pfizer Partnerships to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine into African Countries and Vaccinations into Arms

In 2020, as Pfizer and BioNTech were still developing the COVID-19 vaccine, Julie Jenson was thinking about how to distribute that vaccine to every country around the world, regardless of that country’s means. Jenson, who is Director of International Product Access for Pfizer’s Global Health and Social Impact Team, knew even in those early days that the ultracold storage demands and shipping requirements of the vaccine could pose challenges in reaching people living in remote areas of low- and...

Purpose & Ideals

How The Pfizer Foundation is Partnering to Improve Health Outcomes for Black Youth

A conversation with Dr. Clyde Glenn, President of the Essie B. & William Earl Glenn Foundation for Better Living In Sunflower County, Mississippi, one of the poorest counties in the nation, The Pfizer Foundation partners at The Glenn Family Foundation (GFF) are working to improve health and life outcomes by addressing the social determinants of health impacting this community.  As defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, social determinants of health are conditions in the...

Science & Innovation

What Makes an RNA Vaccine Different From a Conventional Vaccine?

Vaccines are one of the greatest health interventions ever developed. They’ve been cited as being as important to keeping communities healthy as having access to clean water and safe sanitation.1Through scientific investment and ingenuity, today we have multiple vaccine technology platforms that have helped us control and, in some cases, eradicate many healthcare challenges such as polio, river blindness, smallpox, and COVID-19, just to name a few.In 2020, messenger RNA, or mRNA for short, was...

Purpose & Ideals

Pfizer's Commitment to Supplier Diversity

While it’s easy to recognize the economic and social benefits that suppliers and their communities receive by doing business with a global biopharmaceutical company such as Pfizer, the benefits are far more mutual than they may seem. Applying innovative perspectives gained from working with suppliers that bring diversity, Pfizer is better able to improve patient care through these connections to a more inclusive group of communities, thus improving health for all. One way Pfizer has worked to...

Purpose & Ideals

The Pfizer Foundation Invests in Community-Based Solutions to Combat the Threat of Infectious Diseases

Globally, infectious diseases are responsible for an estimated seven million deaths annually1 and are a leading cause of disability, particularly among young children and marginalized populations,2 often perpetuating the cycle of poverty.3 This is one of the reasons why The Pfizer Foundation* is dedicated to accelerating innovative solutions and improving health systems to help address the urgent threat of infectious diseases. Through the Global Health Innovation Grants (GHIG) program, now in...

Purpose & Ideals

Pfizer Partners with Wellcome to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance in Sub-Saharan Africa

As part of Pfizer’s longstanding history of fighting infectious diseases and reducing health disparities for people around the world, we are excited to announce a new partnership with Wellcome, an independent foundation, to help tackle the growing public health crisis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). AMR occurs when bacteria evolve to resist the effectiveness of antibiotics, making previously treatable diseases difficult or impossible to treat. Without action, it is expected to lead to the...

Purpose & Ideals

Pfizer Partners with Direct Relief to Provide Critical COVID-19 Supplies to Hospitals

Fighting back against a global pandemic requires cooperation, collaboration, and teamwork. As part of Pfizer’s broader COVID-19 response, we are proud to partner with Direct Relief, a humanitarian aid organization dedicated to improving the health and lives of people affected by poverty or emergencies, across all 50 United States and 80 countries. Pfizer has always been committed to deploying our resources in times of crisis, and we leveraged our long-standing partnership with Direct Relief to...

The Table of Everything: A Scientist’s Quest to Make Human Genetic Data More User-Friendly

Since the human genome was first sequenced in 2003, scientists have collected a wealth of genetic information that could potentially be used to help create new medicines. Remarkably, as sequencing technology gets faster and cheaper, the amount of human genetic data now doubles every seven months. But in order to keep pace with the rapid generation of genetic information and to make use of it in drug discovery, this information needs to be made more accessible for scientists of all stripes, not...

Partnering to Turn the 'Undruggable' into Promising Targets

In the world of drug discovery, “undruggable” targets are like the stubborn children of biology, proteins that are considered too challenging to bind with conventional molecules. With the rapid pace of scientific advancement, however, the “undruggable” targets of yesterday now represent a promising new area of research. Such is the case with deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs), a family of some 100 proteins that play a role in regulating the right balance of proteins in cells. In 2017, academic...

Science & Innovation

Unlocking the Secrets of the Immune System

The immune system consists of dozens of different cell types that are designed to protect and defend against infection. But sometimes, immune cells can respond in a way that can actually cause disease—for example, when certain cell types either over- or underact. In the field of immunology, scientists are studying how to disrupt or manage these different immune responses to improve health. In cancer, for example, the immune system is turned off or muted, while in inflammatory disorders, the...

Scientific ‘Swap Meet’: Pharma Competitors Form Novel Consortium to Share Materials

Just as an amazing meal often begins with the best ingredients, the most innovative compounds are likely to emerge when scientists have access to diverse and high-quality chemical building blocks. But what are chemical building blocks? To understand that, first, you should know that one way in which chemists synthesize compounds is by combining smaller compounds. These smaller compounds are sometimes referred to as “building blocks” because they can be used to build larger compounds...

Unlocking the Secrets of a Protein “Superfamily"

Large families can be complex. And while you may know some of its members individually, you can’t really gain a true understanding of their relationships and dynamics without considering the group in its totality. Such is the case for solute carrier (SLC) transporters, a “superfamily” of some 400 proteins found in our cell membranes responsible for shuttling nutrients, neurotransmitters, medicines and other molecules in and out of cells. Despite their importance, they remain largely...