Pfizer CEO Profits After COVID Vaccine Announcement

Eyebrows raised when Pfizer CEO sold some of his holdings in the company to the tune of $5.6 million. The prescheduled sale came at the perfect time, when the company publicly announced promising results from early COVID vaccine trials. CNBC reports that Bourla’s base salary was $1.65 million in April. After his most recent sale of shares, he still owns nine times his salary in shares, approximately $15 million.

MarketScale Radio hosts Daniel Litwin and Tyler Kern dissect the news. Litwin considers the serendipity of the sale timed with the public announcement. Kern and Litwin consider the thought of one person profiting tremendously off of a public good like a life-saving vaccine, and in the end, Kern points out, any one takeaway depends on how one feels about capitalism’s economic structures and incentives.

KEY POINTS:

• Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla sells $5.6 million worth of stock just as it jumps 15%.
• The sale was pre-scheduled, but opportunely timed with the public announcement of a promising vaccine.
• Other medical executives at Moderna also are cashing in on spiking stocks while vaccines inch toward approval.

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