Earlier this week, members of Pfizer’s executive leadership team, including Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Albert Bourla, and Chief Financial Officer, David Denton, discussed the company’s
third-quarter 2025 financial results. Following their remarks, the team answered questions from analysts, addressing, among other topics, business development priorities, strategic investments, capital allocation strategy, and key pipeline advancements, in addition to several questions about Pfizer’s proposed acquisition of Metsera.
Separately, on earnings day, Albert shared a brief video discussing key highlights from the strong quarter and his confidence for 2026 and beyond.
Here is a summary of several of the questions on the call and the responses from the Pfizer team, as well as certain additional background and context on each topic:
David Denton noted that Pfizer remains focused on strategically capitalizing on growth opportunities and
“continue[s] to work across the globe to identify potential candidates for acquisition to help bring new and innovative patient medicines to patients.”
Dr. Andrew Baum, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, also highlighted Pfizer’s active pursuit of global investments to help bring innovative medicines to market. For example, the company’s recent
global, ex-China licensing agreement with 3SBio provides a unique opportunity to advance a potential foundational therapy across multiple cancers.
David Denton stressed that Pfizer will simultaneously invest in building out manufacturing capacity in the U.S., while also improving existing infrastructure and further building on cost improvement measures.
Earlier in the call, Dr. Bourla summarized the impact of Pfizer’s industry-first voluntary agreement with the U.S. government, saying, “We successfully addressed the administration's call to lower prescription drug costs and align prices with those in other developed countries, and we will have a three-year grace period from certain U.S. tariffs with our commitment to further invest in manufacturing in the U.S.”
Pfizer has improved productivity across the business through focus, simplification and the use of technology, including AI. David Denton emphasized that these efforts have enabled the company to de-lever significantly, increasing its flexibility to do both business development as well as maintain and grow its dividend over time.
In the first nine months of 2025, Pfizer returned $7.3 billion to shareholders via our quarterly dividend, invested $7.2 billion in internal R&D, and invested approximately $1.6 billion in business development transactions.
Denton added, “That cycle of improvement in productivity is something that we've now embedded in the company. We will continue to do that across the enterprise. We will continue to prioritize ourselves from an R&D perspective.”
Pfizer is encouraged by the performance of PADCEV, with 13% year-over-year global operational revenue growth this quarter. In combination with pembrolizumab, PADCEV continues to expand utilization and has been established as a standard of care first-line treatment for patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial (la/mUC) cancer.
Chief U.S. Commercial Officer Aamir Malik remarked that for the la/mUC population,
“we currently have about 55% share among cisplatin-ineligible patients and 45% to 50% share among cisplatin-eligible. So there is headroom for us to continue to focus on that segment of the market.”
Promising Phase 3 clinical trial results announced during the quarter also highlight the potential to extend use of PADCEV plus pembrolizumab to the treatment of patients living with MIBC who are ineligible for or declined cisplatin-based chemotherapy, which would increase the U.S. addressable population, subject to FDA approval.
A transcript and webcast replay of Pfizer’s third quarter 2025 earnings conference call is available on the company’s
Investor Relations website. You can also see the third quarter’s highlights in the
earning's infographic.