Here’s What Analysts Asked About Pfizer’s Strategy & Priorities on Its Q2 2025 Earnings Call

August 7, 2025

Earlier this week, Pfizer’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Albert Bourla, and Chief Financial Officer, David Denton, discussed the company’s second-quarter 2025 financial results and performance highlights. Following their remarks, members of the executive leadership team answered questions from analysts, addressing, among other topics, Pfizer’s capital allocation strategy, business development priorities, and oncology portfolio.

Albert also shared key highlights from the strong quarter and his optimism for the remainder of the year in a brief video.

Here is a summary of several of the questions asked on the call and the responses from the Pfizer team, as well as additional background and context on each topic:

Christopher Scott of J.P. Morgan asked about Pfizer’s capital allocation strategy and the company’s gross leverage ratio target.

During the first six months of 2025, Pfizer returned $4.9 billion of cash dividends directly to shareholders while reinvesting $4.7 billion in internal research and development projects.

David Denton noted that Pfizer has “improved our target from a leverage perspective down to 2.7x from 3.25x. That’s largely because we’ve improved our cash generation capability…a little faster than we anticipated post closing of the Seagen acquisition.”

Maintaining gross leverage at an appropriate level – which helps Pfizer preserve its credit rating and access to certain types of financing – is a key priority towards improving its capacity for business development.

Courtney Breen of Bernstein asked about Pfizer’s business development priorities and key areas of opportunity.

Albert Bourla highlighted that Pfizer’s strategy remains focused on four key areas – Oncology, Vaccines, Internal Medicine (cardiometabolic, including obesity), and Inflammation & Immunology.

Regarding obesity, he noted that “this is an area that is very big… A lot of new things are coming up. And we have tremendous development capabilities in [the] primary care type of business, and we also have tremendous commercial opportunities.”

Earlier in the call, David Denton highlighted that Pfizer’s business development capacity is now approximately $13 billion following the exclusive global, ex-China, licensing agreement with 3SBio, which closed in July. And Albert reiterated the importance of taking a disciplined approach to any transaction, stating, “We will be very disciplined with our company. We will not overpay.”

Evan Seigerman of BMO Capital Markets asked about the impact of the Seagen acquisition on Pfizer’s oncology portfolio.

Albert Bourla noted that the Seagen acquisition provided the opportunity to create value not only from its four marketed products but also from its antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) technology platform and its intellectual property, people, and pipeline assets.

Chris Boshoff, Pfizer’s Chief Scientific Officer and President, Research & Development, provided additional detail on several important ADC development programs, including:

Anticipated readouts for Padcev, a medicine Pfizer is investigating for the potential treatment of muscle-invasive bladder cancer, which could potentially change the standard of care for eligible patients;
An ongoing Phase 3 program for sigvotatug vedotin, which seeks to address unmet needs in non-small cell lung cancer;
A planned Phase 3 program for Pfizer’s first-in-class PD-L1-targeting ADC, a potential therapy for head-and-neck cancer; and
“A whole new group of ADCs coming” via Pfizer’s early-stage pipeline.

Pfizer’s oncology portfolio represents one of the company’s most significant opportunities to provide for patients in need and create value for shareholders, and Albert Bourla highlighted that Seagen is “transforming our oncology portfolio and business.”

A transcript and webcast replay of Pfizer’s second-quarter 2025 earnings conference call is available on the company’s  Investor Relations  website.

Forward-looking statements included herein, including those related to our anticipated operating and financial performance, including our financial guidance, our product and pipeline advancements, our strategic priorities, our cost realignment program and our efforts to return value to shareholders, are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. We encourage you to read our reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including the sections captioned “Risk Factors” and “Forward Looking Information and Factors that May Affect Future Results,” for a description of such substantial risks and uncertainties. These reports are available at pfizer.com and the SEC’s website. Also reference Pfizer’s second quarter 2025 earnings release for additional information.

Forward-looking statements included herein are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. We encourage you to read our reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including the sections captioned “Risk Factors” and “Forward Looking Information and Factors that May Affect Future Results,” for a description of such substantial risks and uncertainties. These reports are available at pfizer.com and the SEC’s website.

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