Read the Conversation
Conversation highlights:
- Strong 2025 performance in Pfizer Emerging Markets, with Latin America, especially Brazil, driving growth; 2026 priorities focus on vaccines, oncology expansion, and preparing future launches.
- Vaccines remain a top strategic pillar, with recent launches in Brazil and Mexico, and a growing regional supply network initiative with PAHO, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico to strengthen pandemic preparedness.
- Oncology momentum continues, fuelled by scientific advances, improved diagnostics platforms, and efforts to expand timely access to innovative therapies across the region.
- Leadership priorities emphasize learning agility and customer obsession, ensuring teams adapt quickly to AI-driven change while staying deeply connected to healthcare partners and patient needs.
- Personal reflections highlight a 25-year career shaped by bold moves, global experiences, and a commitment to impact, with a final message encouraging people to take charge of their health, starting with proactive vaccination.
EF: As we come to the end of the year, how do you reflect on 2025? It has been quite a dynamic year, and what are the key priorities on your agenda as you look ahead to 2026?
SA: 2025 has been a very successful year for us at Pfizer overall, particularly in emerging markets. Latin America represents more than 25 percent of our emerging markets business today, and its success has been fundamental to the region's overall performance.
In Latin America, especially in Brazil, the launch of our new vaccines has been a key focus this year and has strongly contributed to the success we are seeing now. Looking ahead to 2026, our priority is to continue building on this momentum and the growth we see across the region.
In emerging markets, there are often unforeseen challenges in one country and new opportunities in another. Plans rarely unfold exactly as planned, so it is always about managing risk while identifying opportunities. That said, when you take a longer-term view, emerging markets and Latin America remain on a clear growth trajectory, driven by an aging population and a growing middle class.
For 2026, moving forward, we will continue to focus on our vaccines business because we are still very much in the launch phase. We have just launched our pneumococcal conjugated 20-valent vaccine for all age groups in Mexico, and we will also be launching other vaccines for respiratory diseases, including the RSV vaccine, both for maternal immunization and for older adults. That will be our main focus.
At the same time, oncology is becoming an increasingly important business for us. In that sense, we recently acquired a company that provides an antibody-drug conjugate platform. We are awaiting the results from the clinical trials, but this is a very promising and important focus area for us.
In the last couple of months, we also acquired another company with a very promising weight-loss pipeline. This is an area of immense public health importance and also very high demand. It is still very new, but given how important this area is, particularly in countries like Mexico, which unfortunately has one of the highest rates of childhood obesity in the world, we have a strong duty to bring this pipeline to patients in the best possible way. I am sure this will be one of the priorities for the coming year as we prepare that portfolio for launch.
EF: How do you balance priorities across such a large and diverse region?
SN: Although these markets might sound very diverse, there are also many commonalities, and that connects with the portfolio you bring to them. You can start to understand certain patterns. And that pattern identification helps you ask the right questions. When you ask those questions, you begin to identify your opportunities.
In addition to my role in Latin America, I also lead the Emerging Markets Commercial Office. This is basically the evolved marketing organization for emerging markets, and we define our remit as high challenge and high support. This means we challenge each country organization to determine how much they can improve or grow in each market and brand. We use a methodology called patient flow analysis. We analyze patient flow in each market to understand how many patients could be positively treated with our breakthrough therapies.
For example, if we take one of our oncology brands for lung cancer, and we look at every step the patient goes through, we see that the right diagnostics and the right level of competitive clinical information are the two most common barriers. And when we focus on that, we can see that India, which is a completely private market where patients pay out of pocket, looks very similar to a market like Argentina, which is covered by the social security, because the diagnosis process is the same. Someone has to take a biopsy, that biopsy needs to be tested for certain genetic dispositions, and the time between the biopsy and the doctor receiving the results needs to be as short as possible.
So, although India and Argentina might sound very different, the common aspects are very similar. When you do this analysis across your important brands, let us say the top 20 brands, you can identify where the commonalities are and where you can really focus to grow even faster. That is how we usually approach it.
EF: Could you tell us a bit more about how you are making a difference across the continent through vaccines?
SN: First of all, we are lucky in Latin America in general because we have common platforms. The most important one, of course, is language, except in Brazil. More importantly, these countries are used to collaborating in healthcare, for instance, through the PAHO Revolving Fund. This is a great advantage this region has, and one that few other regions share. Even when I compare it to Europe, where the European Commission is a common structure, I do not see the same level of partnership as in Latin America.
Second, when you look at vaccination rates in Latin America, both in children and adults, they are very high compared to other parts of the world. This provides a very good platform for countries to protect vulnerable populations against infectious diseases, and this has been acknowledged in the region.
As a company that is a leader in vaccines, we looked at this environment and asked how we could really partner to help countries protect even more people. We are now in a post-pandemic world, and the pandemic taught us important lessons for both industry and the public sector. The key theme is collaboration. Nobody can do it alone, neither governments nor companies.
One of the priorities for Latin American countries after the pandemic was to be prepared for the next one. We do not know when or how it will come, but history shows us that another pandemic is possible. This was a clear mandate given to PAHO after the pandemic. When we discussed this with them, given that we have new vaccines to launch and countries want to be better prepared, we started brainstorming how we could partner.
The first discussions were together with Sinergium Biotech, our partner in Argentina, which has manufactured our pneumococcal vaccine for more than 10 years through a Tech Transfer Project. From these discussions, we developed the idea of a regional vaccine supply network that would bring together a local manufacturer, a multinational company, and PAHO.
Previously, most countries were considering vaccine manufacturing only within their own borders. But this is not productive and efficient, and companies cannot invest everywhere for financial reasons. Vaccines also use very different technologies. Examples include mRNA, protein-based, and conjugate vaccines. These are very different technologies and a truly complex process.
From the manufacturer's side, we need predictability and sustainability to invest and see a return. What the region needs is the capacity to supply vaccines in normal times and to scale up manufacturing rapidly during a pandemic. That is why we proposed that countries come together under a unified procurement mechanism through PAHO, rather than each country requiring local manufacturing within its borders.
The first example of this model was the pneumococcal vaccine manufactured in Argentina. Today, we are in discussions with the Brazilian government on a similar model using another vaccine, and with the Mexican government to potentially include them in this regional supply network. If Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina join forces, they would cover around 70-75% of the region's vaccine demand. This would not only benefit these three countries but also the remaining 38 countries in the region by enabling lower prices, earlier access to innovation, and faster capacity scale-up in the event of another pandemic. That was the idea. We have completed step one, and we are now in discussions for steps two and three.
EF: How are you advancing your oncology portfolio?
SN: Oncology is a very important area of healthcare. If you ask people what their number one fear is as they get older, it is often cancer. Age itself is a risk factor, and as healthier living becomes more common and people live longer, the probability of experiencing cancer at some point in life increases. These are simply facts.
What really amazes me, after almost 25 years in the industry, is how quickly the science is developing. In the areas where Pfizer operates, the progress has been remarkable. To give one example, when our first product came into being, survival rates for kidney cancer were around five to six months. Today, we are talking about four or five years. The same is true in lung cancer. Depending on the subtype and genetic disposition, survival rates that used to be two or three months are now being discussed in terms of five, six, or even seven years.
This is happening in front of our eyes, and it is one of the biggest scientific renaissances I have seen in my career. Every year at major medical congresses, such as ASCO, there are sessions where physicians applaud the results of new molecules. And this is not only Pfizer, but the industry as a whole. There is a significant unmet patient need, science is blossoming, and the industry's duty is to bring these products to patients as quickly as possible.
Of course, there are barriers, and one of the key ones is diagnostics. We are making strong progress here. For example, in Argentina, we have a platform called Mult diagnosis, where pharmaceutical companies came together. Many oncology products target specific cancers based on genetic mutations. In the past, we sponsored diagnostic tests one by one. Now, with a single platform, all companies contribute, and when a patient’s biopsy is taken, it is tested for all relevant genetic mutations at once, rather than sequentially.
This saves time for patients, saves money for the healthcare system, and helps innovative medicines reach patients much faster. This initiative started with lung cancer, and now we are working to expand it to colon cancer. There are similar initiatives underway in Mexico and in other countries. This is one of the key areas where we are making a real difference.
The other barrier is access, access to these medications. Here, we are working with both private and public payers to accelerate access as quickly as possible. Real-world evidence and understanding the burden of disease are very important. When we can show how many people are dying from a specific cancer in each country, and what the impact of treatment could be, it helps make the case. Yes, there is an impact on budgets, but the impact on people’s lives is far greater.
Having these conversations is critical to bringing these treatments to Latin America quickly. I can already see the progress being made, which gives me hope that access can improve even faster.
Oncology is a very different therapeutic area. In the pharmaceutical industry, you typically operate within the window of patent protection. When you discover a new product or generate new data, there is data or patent protection for that product’s lifecycle. Eventually, generics or biosimilars enter the market, and costs decrease.
However, in cancer, scientific progress usually outpaces the loss of exclusivity. This means a better competitor with improved results may emerge within three to four years. You are less concerned about generics or biosimilars because innovation moves faster than exclusivity losses. It is the only therapeutic area I have seen where this happens, which is fascinating.
In this context, the main challenge is speed, bringing the science to patients as quickly as possible. Speed and time-to-market often determine both patient impact and commercial success.
EF: What kind of talent is Pfizer looking for?
SN: The way we define it at Pfizer is through what we call learning agility. This means how quickly someone can adapt, learn, and start making an impact when placed in a new situation, regardless of their function. For me, this is the single biggest factor determining success, for the individual’s career and for us as a company.
Learning agility is not new for us; we have used it in previous talent assessments to understand how fast and how far someone can go. What is new is that it has become even more relevant today.
At the same time, some things will not change. AI will be increasingly used by our competitors, by healthcare professionals, hospitals, governments, and patients. People are already using tools to access information. But even in this new AI-enabled world, everyone in business still has a customer.
Regardless of technological advances, we need to stay relevant to our customers, keep pace with them, and meet them where they are on their journey to adopt new technology. We need to provide the right level of information and the timely partnership they are looking for, which will always differentiate us from competitors.
Science comes first, of course, and not everyone will use AI to accelerate it. But the way you bring innovation to people, working closely with regulatory authorities, payers, and physicians, and staying externally focused rather than internally, is critical. AI is an efficiency tool, but it should never distract us from our customers or from the external world.
EF: Reflecting on your 25 years at Pfizer, what are the key moments or experiences that stand out to you?
SN: I always say that I feel lucky and privileged to work at Pfizer. When I graduated, I just wanted to do marketing and make an impact, and Pfizer gave me both opportunities. I am now doing marketing at the scale of emerging markets, something I could never have dreamed of when I started my career. The impact we have had, millions of patients now, and billions during the pandemic, is unparalleled compared to the goals I set for myself at the beginning.
A turning point in my career was taking the bold decision to move from Turkey to Colombia in my 12th year, when I was a business unit lead in Turkey. I wanted to try something new. I spoke to different leaders across the region, and the leader in Latin America reached out to offer me a role in Colombia. Honestly, I did not even know where Colombia was on the map at first, so I went to Wikipedia, did my research, and spoke with Pfizer colleagues.
The first year in Colombia came with challenges, especially around past security concerns, but when you speak to people, you realize the perception and reality are very different. I had the privilege of learning Spanish, as did my family, which has been incredibly valuable throughout my career. It allows me to represent Pfizer in Spanish, even speaking with presidents of Latin American countries, and to communicate directly with each member of my team.
After that experience, it became easier to take on roles in New York, Dubai, and London. My family adjusted to this rhythm, and we enjoyed it. I am always grateful to Pfizer for giving me these chances to live and work in such amazing and diverse places. It has also given me a broader perspective, helping me better understand people. I am a product of the Emerging Markets school at Pfizer, and I am very grateful for that.
EF: Do you have a final message?
SN: My final message, and something I also recommend to my parents and loved ones, is to take control of your health. We live in a world where patients and consumers are empowered, but they are also bombarded with messages, some true, some not. Health is the most precious thing we have, and no one can make the best decisions for it except yourself.
It may sound simple, but it starts with getting the vaccines you need for your stage in life. Vaccination is the single most important intervention you can make for your own health. Talk to your physician and get the easiest protection you can against the deadliest diseases.
