Over the last two years, supply chain professionals have been thrown into the spotlight like never before. While all of that attention brings opportunity, it is also exhausting – and the challenges seem to be never ending, especially for leaders in the pharmaceutical industry.

Jim Cafone is the Vice President of Pfizer Global Supply Chain. He has responsibility for planning and delivery worldwide, including the company’s sales order management functions. Because Pfizer makes vaccines, solid dose tablets, and gene therapy treatments for rare diseases, they employ a broad range of technology platforms to support the people they think of as their last mile: patients.

In this interview, Jim talks openly about what it was like to manage Pfizer’s supply chain through the COVID-19 pandemic with co-hosts Kelly Barner and Scott Luton:

·         How his team put a plan together to roll out the COVID-19 vaccine

·         Some of the operational hurdles they faced and how they overcame them

·         Examples of ongoing Pfizer innovation and his advice for new graduates entering the field of global supply chain

Intro/Outro (00:03):

Welcome to supply chain. Now the voice of global supply chain supply chain now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today’s critical issues. The challenges and opportunities stay tuned to hear from those making global business happen right here on supply chain now.

Scott Luton (00:31):

Hey, good morning, everybody. Scott Luton and special guest host Kelly Barner with you here on supply chain. Now, welcome to today’s show Kelly, how you doing?

Kelly Barner (00:40):

I’m doing good, Scott. I’m always glad to be with you. And of course I wanna wish you happy wear your favorite light blue shirt today.

Scott Luton (00:47):

<laugh> it’s really a thing. It’s on the calendar. It’s on the global calendar, uh, uh, national holiday at the very least. Uh, but kidding aside, big, big show here today, as we’re gonna be interviewing the supply chain leader of an organization that has moved mountains in the last couple years, leading a noble mission and a global battle against the pandemic, Kelly should be an intriguing conversation, right?

Kelly Barner (01:08):

Yes. I’m sure we’re all going to learn a lot over the next bit of time.

Scott Luton (01:11):

Agreed, agreed. So with new, further ado on a welcome in our newest friend, Jim kaon vice president Pfizer global supply chain, Jim, how you doing?

Jim Cafone (01:21):

I’m doing well today, Scott and Kelly. Thanks, uh, for having me here today. I really appreciate it.

Scott Luton (01:26):

You bet. Well, we appreciate you carving some time out. I can only imagine Kelly, uh, how many plates he, how many full plates Jim’s got him and his team, but, uh, where we wanna start before we dive into, uh, kind of, um, our main topics here today, Jim, I wanna get to know you a little better, right? So, uh, we like starting our conversations with now tell us where you grew up, where you’re from and give us some anecdotes about that upbringing.

Jim Cafone (01:53):

Yeah, it’s uh, maybe I’ll start off with, uh, so I grew up, uh, small town in, uh, Northern New Jersey. Okay. About 10 minutes away from, uh, giant stadium. Uh, 15 minutes away outside the Lincoln tunnel town called Bloomfield, um, uh, blue collar town mostly. Okay. Uh, and uh, spent a lot of time there. I was 17 and then went on a university.

Scott Luton (02:22):

Well, so does that make you a giants fan?

Jim Cafone (02:26):

I’m always, uh, rooting for the underdog and I think the giant fans tend to be a little bit more elitist. So I’m a jet fan.

Scott Luton (02:33):

<laugh> <laugh> the New York jets. Love it. Um, yeah. Um, alright, so one quick follow up question. Uh, you left town to go to school. Where’d you go to school?

Jim Cafone (02:44):

I went to, uh, university of Rhode Island. So I completely got out of, uh, semi city living and then went up to the beautiful shores of, uh, the ocean in Rhode Island,

Scott Luton (02:55):

Man, Kelly. He paints quite a picture there. Huh?

Kelly Barner (02:58):

<laugh> I know. And actually, Jim, I wanted to ask you, cuz I think I have this right. Is it true that in the whole state of New Jersey, you’re not allowed to pump your own gas

Jim Cafone (03:07):

<laugh> that is true. That is true. We are the only state, uh, well new Jersey’s the only state and I guess you’re not, you still not allowed to do it. And nobody really understands why, but every time it gets brought up for a vote, for whatever reason, it still stands. So man, well

Kelly Barner (03:22):

Job creation

Scott Luton (03:24):

<laugh> so <laugh> I had no idea Kelly, the things you learn here, little fun to it. Yeah. I’ve got some goo and do this afternoon, but uh, Jim, one final question about your upbringing, uh, from New Jersey to Rhode Island to wherever you are now. Um, what was one food dish in the CA phone household that was inseparable from your, your childhood

Jim Cafone (03:47):

Growing up? Uh, I would probably say lasagna. Okay. With an Italian last name. That would be it <laugh>. That would be it. That was the one that you always look forward to when you came home and you, uh, and mom had made it. Yep. That was it.

Scott Luton (04:04):

<laugh> man. Okay. Well, uh, I know what we’re having for dinner tonight. Uh, Kelly Barner making me hungry. All right. So Kelly, we’ve done, we’ve gotten kind of a little bit about, uh, Jen’s background. I’m sure there’s a lot more there. Uh, we’ll try to get to who knows what else might come out in today’s interview, but where are we going next with Jim? Kaon

Kelly Barner (04:23):

Sort talk a little bit about the bigger picture. Um, so given the leadership role that not only supply chains, but also the pharmaceutical industry has been in over the last couple of years, like to hear a little bit more about your past experience with leadership. Can you talk to us about one key leadership role that particularly formed your own worldview and, and maybe even impacted the trajectory of your career?

Scott Luton (04:49):

Hmm.

Jim Cafone (04:50):

Yeah. It’s a great question. So would I think the secret to your question is that the word worldview right worldview? So, um, probably one of the best roles I had from a global perspective, 2004 to 2007, I was responsible for, uh, I was vice president of our European manufacturing, uh, and supply division at a company called w pharmaceuticals w was eventually purchased by Pfizer. But I think that was my first time in a significant leadership role outside the United States, living outside the United States and having varying people, uh, in my organization where, uh, multiculture, um, and multilingual certainly. And you know, the interesting thing about being in, in the United States versus Europe, that I was fascinated me is in the United States, you drive a hundred miles. Everybody still speaks the same language. You still see, uh, target, you still see Walmart, you still see a lot of the same, uh, Starbucks and dunking donuts. When you drive, you know, a hundred miles or a hundred kilometers in Europe, you could drive through four different languages in six different countries. It’s amazing. Yeah. So that was probably the, one of the biggest assignments, my late thirties, early forties, where I really learned a lot.

Kelly Barner (06:12):

And you were stationed in Europe for that role?

Jim Cafone (06:14):

That’s correct. Yeah. I was one of the things, you know, Kelly, I, when, when, when I was offered that role, I didn’t wanna be doing that role from, so sitting in the United States, you know, your, your classic American companies, like to sort of give people responsibility for geographies outside the United States, but, you know, um, it, it’s always better if you can immerse yourself in is really what it comes down to, you know? Yeah. Time zones. And I think the other thing too, is I think people appreciate more of, you know, again, this is pretty COVID of being able to see you in their time zone and, and visit travel those sorts of things. Yes.

Kelly Barner (06:54):

Yeah. So now that we’ve sort of walk through your tour up to the current point, tell us a little bit, I mean, most people have heard of Pfizer, but if you would just start us by telling us a little bit more about how you describe Pfizer as a company, and then of course, tell us more about your role there.

Jim Cafone (07:12):

Yeah. So Pfizer and, you know, obviously it’s, uh, it’s, it’s one of the names nowadays that, you know, most, if not all people know, right. Um, fortunate or unfortunately due to, uh, you know, a pandemic, um, you know, but we are, um, a company that is probably one of the largest, you know, healthcare providers, uh, manufacturers and, and our purpose is, is breakthroughs that change patient’s lives. Our goal every day, every Pfizer employee comes to the office with the intention of we’re logging on their computer these days, right. With the intention of, you know, uh, supporting a patient. And, and it’s a pretty noble mission because each one of us, no matter who you are, uh, always, you know, fortunately, or unfortunately has, um, you know, a patient around them, right. We all know a patient. Um, the patient in some cases is ourselves, or it’s a relative or it’s a child or something along those lines, but that’s really what our goal is. So, um, you know, I can give you all the statistics, you can find it on pfizer.com, uh, sales products, all those great things, but that’s really, you know, Pfizer, what, what we are breakthroughs that change patients lives. Yeah.

Kelly Barner (08:31):

And how about your role?

Jim Cafone (08:33):

So I’m the head of our worldwide supply chain. So, uh, in the supply chain world of plan source manufacture deliver, I have responsibility for all the planning and I have responsibility for all the delivery globally, uh, including our sales order management functions. And then I have a peer in mine that does all of the, um, uh, procurement. And then I have multiple peers that do actually the manufacturing in our, in the Pfizer world. We don’t just make vaccines. We make solid dose tablets. We do work in, uh, rare diseases like, you know, for, uh, in gene therapy. So we have a multitude of technology, uh, platforms, um, and it’s, uh, so, you know, my team is again, responsible for the direct direct planning, and then also the delivery of those who are patients mm-hmm, <affirmative> the last mile,

Scott Luton (09:31):

You know, uh, I was really looking forward to meeting you here today, Jim, and learning more from your perspective, especially given the last few years, I had a chance, uh, probably about, uh, 10 years ago. Now, I think it was to visit your, uh, uh, Pfizer head of small operation at the time down in Al Albany, Georgia. And I think I said that right, Kelly, um, there’s all kinds of ways we can pronounce, uh, different towns in our, uh, great state of Georgia, but, um, it was fascinating to meet the leaders, to meet some of the team members to, um, see the operation. We had a, we, uh, led a small training class down there and so fast forward now to everything that has transpired and to be able to meet, you know, one of the, uh, global supply chain leaders. Um, and this is, this is really a treat for a supply chain nerd like me.

Scott Luton (10:18):

So where I wanna dive into next, uh, Jim, now that, uh, Kelly’s really, um, helped our listeners really level set with your background and kind of how you view clearly, uh, your priority. We just heard there, Kelly is on the mission. I mean, I love that about, um, about a lot of supply chain practitioners. So I wanna focus in, we all know, uh, the noble mission that a Pfizer team has been deeply immersed in, you know, moving mountains. I mean, really doing some things that we never thought could be done, uh, just a couple years ago, especially related to the COVID 19 vaccine. So, uh, a couple questions for you, Jim, first off, given all the complexities involved, right. Uh, we were talking pre-show about, you know, when you got a big problem, a lot of folks, I know I’ve done it before you kind of admire the problem. You compliment the problem. You’re kind of overwhelmed and you never get to, you know, doing something about it. So starting there, when it comes to, you know, disseminating a COVID 19 vaccine, you know, around the world, how did, how did you and the team, uh, put the plan together initially?

Jim Cafone (11:25):

Yeah, it’s a great question. Um, and you know, for me to really, I, I, I almost wanna walk you back to if I could, um, to, you know, I guess it’s early 2000 early, 2020, right. And, and, and if you could maybe, um, I wanna kind of like put you into the, like where we were at the time. Right? Sure. So, so, you know, in early 2020, basically what happened was, is, um, the Chinese government, it was January 12th, uh, uploaded the COVID SARS, uh, genetic sequence right now we, um, at the time, you know, were starting to see quite a lot of patterns around the world because, because of the broad based portfolio, we have, you start to see ordering patterns change, right? You start to see certain categories start to see a tremendous amount of, of uptake. And a lot of it was for our hospital emergency rooms settings, right?

Jim Cafone (12:36):

So January early February, we started to see that we also have, you know, manufacturing operations in China. And we started to get early hand, you know, on what was happening. Right. So Pfizer, as a company knew that it wanted to contribute to this, you know, that we, we never used the word compete, right? We used the words contribute, and there were a lot of ways that you can contribute during this sort of situation. You could go in it and try to prevent the disease through vaccine technology. You could try to treat the symptoms of the disease once people have it. Right. Right. And I think what, what our CEO was adamant about was trying to contribute anywhere we could. Mm. So when we, and this is specific to the vaccine, right. We didn’t really know what kind of vaccine technology we were gonna go with.

Jim Cafone (13:31):

And, and let, let me try to explain that a little further is there’s many different types of, uh, vaccine technology. You can, you know, there’s things such as like what I would call live attenuated viruses. There is inactive viruses, there’s viral vectors. And then there’s this new technology that we went with, which was mRNA, right. When we were talking about contributing, the question is your population in the world is 7.5 to 8 billion people. Right. We didn’t wanna just contribute in the Western world. We didn’t want to just contribute 10 million doses or a hundred million. We specifically, we’re, we’re driving ourselves towards really, you know, changing the entire paradigm of how you do this. So the point I’m trying to make is, you know, when you were asking the original question, Scott is in the first quarter of 2020, we didn’t really know what technology we were going with. And then it was our CEO working with, uh, another company by the name of Biointech, where we first struck a deal with them, for what we thought was this breakthrough technology that didn’t allow you to just have 50 million, a hundred million doses, you could have billions of doses. Right. That was the big,

Scott Luton (14:58):

Which would support, you know, world, the world. Yeah. And, and your as

Jim Cafone (15:01):

Many people as you could in the world,

Scott Luton (15:02):

Correct? Correct. And your desire to, to really not just make a small dent universe, but, uh, change a paradigm as you put it, Jim. Right.

Jim Cafone (15:10):

Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, you’re, you’re dealing, I mean, let’s, let’s, you know, remember, you know, you’re dealing with a worldwide health crisis, you’re dealing with something that was spreading around the world, exceptionally rapid, and you needed, you, you just needed a breakthrough technology in order to do so. We bet on this new mRNA vaccine technology, and we bet that technology probably in the March of 2020 timeframe. And we bet at that time that we were gonna hopefully try to get something on the market, but be able to scale it for billions of doses. So as we were going through that, we were, you know, with our Biointech partner and, you know, we saw our phase one phase two trials in April. And in may, we selected a final candidate dose in actually July, by the way, we had 42,000 patients in the clinical trial, right. A big clinical trial, maybe a thousand. This is 42,000.

Scott Luton (16:16):

Wow, wow. In a short amount of time as well,

Jim Cafone (16:20):

Short amount of time. And it was the most diverse trial we’ve ever, you know, conducted right from a female male cultural perspective all around the world. Right. Um, and to make a long story short, we, you know, had, we went through, um, our phase two phase three, and it was in sort of the March timeframe, I’m sorry, November timeframe, where, when we UN you know, unveiled all of our phase three trials, and that’s where we sort of knew we had a winner now, all in that parallel time from March until November, our team had just about every night was sleepless. Cuz we had to build a supply chain for billions of doses using a technology that we had never used before.

Scott Luton (17:13):

And

Jim Cafone (17:13):

Let me put it until maybe one more perspective and I’ll, and then I’ll let you sort of, you know, an, um, ask me, you know, some other thoughts, but the number one vaccine at the time within Pfizer is a product called preor. So in 2019 we produced two, 200 million doses, 200 million in 2021, we produced just over 2 billion doses. And in 2022, all things being equal will produce roughly around three and a half billion doses. Wow. So the, the amount of scale that we went to based on this bet of the mRNA was I, I it’s was probably the greatest manufacturing feat since probably Henry Ford and the, you know, Ford production system.

Scott Luton (18:08):

Uh, Jim there’s. So man, uh, Kelly, I don’t know about you, but my mind is racing with, uh, different, uh, aspects of this story. And we’re just kind of getting outta the gate here. Yeah. But Kelly will give you a chance to respond to what, uh, what Jim just shared with us.

Kelly Barner (18:22):

Sure. So I guess the, the first thing that comes to mind given what we’ve discussed is that Jim, you started with us really kind of talking about how each person comes to work every day or turns on their laptop every day, knowing a patient, right. Sort of that singular motivating drive to want to make a contribution and to scale from that to the billions of doses. Right. And, and reproducing the vaccine on that scale. That’s an amazing thing. If you can connect sort of the detailed, personal connection with that, with that larger mission. Um, what I would love to know about, cause I remember this window of time that you’re talking about this was sort of when everybody was, well, everybody else was discovering supply chain for the first time. Um, and there was a lot of discussion around how cold it was going to have to be. Right. So people are learning about cold chain logistics. Um, and I would, I would love to know anything that you’re able to share about how your team was receiving new information during that time between, I think you said March and November when I’m sure things were relatively fluid because everyone was moving so fast trying to build a supply chain for sort of a moving target. Mm-hmm <affirmative> what was that time like for you and your team?

Jim Cafone (19:43):

Yeah. I, um, here’s the best way to sort of describe this. We optimized on volume, how much volume can we, you know, what, what is the, what is the patient population we could hit, right. And which is one of the reasons why, and again, you know, I credit our CEO for this and, and the, and the, our vaccine scientists is we knew the mRNA technology. And I can get into a little bit about what that is, but what that basically fundamentally is the software code. So Pfizer became a software provider overnight because what you do is, is that you take a piece of the DNA, uh, software out of the spike protein. You transcribe that into transcript that into RNA, and then you replicate the RNA, right? And I’m not a virologist, I’m not a scientist. I’m

Scott Luton (20:36):

That makes three of us. I think I can safely say that

Jim Cafone (20:39):

<laugh> but what it allows you to do is exceptionally efficient to grow large scale. Right. Here’s the challenge with RNA, which I think, I think you were, you’re, you’re getting at, um, Kelly is RNA. Doesn’t like heat, right? So like, uh, the analogy I always use is, you know, if you cut an apple and you leave it on your counter, you cut a banana and leave it on your counter. You come back an hour later, it’s browned out. Well, if you take a piece of, um, RNA and you’ll leave it on your counter, if you could do such a thing, it would brown out in about two nanoseconds. So the, when we, we were looking at the fact that if we were gonna manufacture this for speed and scale is we would have to go out with a deep frozen, and it was minus 80 to minus 90 Celsius.

Jim Cafone (21:30):

Wow. And, and, and you remember right in the first quarter of 2020, even into the second quarter, most people were stating it couldn’t be done or it was stupid to be done. Right. Right. So that was another big bet and a big, you know, again, um, another big, what I would call a bravery moment inside of Pfizer, because what happened was, is we could have gone out with perhaps a let’s call it less cold version, maybe something that’s not at minus 90, maybe it’s minus 20, maybe it’s two to eight degrees Celsius, but that would take time. Right. We’d have to reformulate, you’d have to put perhaps preservatives, there’s different things you may have to do. And again, I’m not, um, I’m not a, uh, you know, chemistry, uh, virologist. Right. Um, but we optimize on speed and we said to ourselves, if we can get this thing out, which we ended up as, you know, getting and out in 10 months. Yeah. Which by the way, the, the, the, the previous world record was around 10 years for a vaccine

Scott Luton (22:44):

Unbelievably.

Jim Cafone (22:45):

Right. Um, now I, you know, maybe I should correct myself. I think Ebola, uh, I think the Merck, which I have a great degree of respect from, I think they got theirs out in about three to four years, but this was nine months. Right.

Scott Luton (22:57):

Right.

Jim Cafone (22:59):

So if we were gonna go out with something that, you know, cold chain, non cold chain, it would’ve taken us a lot longer. And then, you know, what happens when you delay therapies, the critical patients lives are impacted. That’s fundamentally. So,

Scott Luton (23:14):

All right. So much to talk about. So little time, uh, and Kelly, we’re gonna, uh, make sure Jim has an opportunity to speak to any other, you know, operational hurdles that came with this, this ma this massive game, changing world, changing mission. I mean, it really, there’s no different way that might sound dramatic, but it really lives were on the line. And things were being done in a way, and in a fashion that had never been done before. Um, but I wanna go all the way back to where you started your response there, Jim, you know, you talked about that you and the team wanted to contribute, not compete, you know, and that’s where, that’s one of my favorite parts about what we saw during the pandemic is we saw companies that were fierce competitors work together to serve humanity. And that’s gonna stick with us for a long time.

Scott Luton (24:04):

And, and that’s how we were able to working together to achieve, uh, and really make sure that the, the, the vaccine was widely available. Right. Um, beyond the sci science behind it. Cause I can tell you, uh, miss Beckham, hopefully you’re not listening, but, uh, I was not the chemistry, a student. Uh, so Jim, thank you for putting in terms that that most of us can, can approach, uh, one Le one other thing I think it’s really important not to get lost in shuffle is the 42,000, um, folks that were, that were part of the, the trials right. To, to, to mitigate the risk and, and to, um, and to make sure it was safe for everybody, Jim, you even said it, a thousand people make up a lot of those trials, 42,000 Kelly. Can you imagine that data, uh, you know, we talk about big data, uh, you know, can you imagine the, what had to be accomplished there, right.

Scott Luton (24:56):

To get that in the right hand. So the right decisions were made, we can move forward. And all of this, these are just a couple little, little tidbits, all this being done in that, with the backdrop that was 20, 20 and 2021. I mean, this is like fascinating stuff that, that businesses will be studying for, for, uh, decades to come. So Kelly, I’m gonna give you a chance to comment on, on kind of what we were just talk, what I was just sharing there, and then I wanna get back and, and talk any other operational hurdles that Jim wants to, uh, share with us, Kelly, your thoughts.

Kelly Barner (25:28):

Sure. No, I, I, I think it was a great unifying moment, right? It was like everyone had a role to play, obviously you and your team at Pfizer and the, the partners that you cooperated with, but it, it allowed certainly people watching from home to learn the power of supply chain, even beyond this particular instance. But then all the people Scott, that you mentioned that were, were part of the trials and were simply willing to be part of the solution. It really was an incredible unifying moment that I think the world needed against the backdrop of some very difficult circumstances.

Scott Luton (26:00):

Well said, Kelly well said, you know, we, we’ve got friends at ups and FedEx and to hear both leaders from both organizations mentioning each other’s company names yes. And same conversations that was, that’s unheard. You know, that stuff doesn’t take PLA that doesn’t happen. And, uh, so, uh, this will is one silver lining. That’s gonna stick with all of us for quite some time. Okay. So, uh, Jim, I wanna give you a chance to weigh in. There’s a couple of things we wanna chat with you about, uh, but any other operational hurdles and, and how the team was able to overcome them that you wanna share with our audience.

Jim Cafone (26:35):

Yeah. I, there, there was like four main things. We were, we were really working on Scott. One is, you know, we had to certainly build out a manufacturing process for billions. We had to build out a network and it wasn’t just steel, you know, stainless steel. It was, uh, a network of, you know, providers, as you said, you, you know, you said ups, FedEx, many different, uh, logistics providers around the world, many different suppliers around the world. Right. Um, uh, many governments cooperated, I mean, unbelievable collaboration and cooperation with, with just about every government that we had gone through. So we, we were really successful in, uh, pulling together what I would classify as, um, you know, a mosaic of partners in order to really get this job done. And, and the, and the, and the, um, you know, the great thing that we were able to do is, you know, really do this at the speed of science. That’s really what we’re up against is the speed of science. So we talk about supply chain, the speed of science dictated our supply chain. And, and, and let me tell you the, um, everything that we were doing, you know, inside of Pfizer at the time is, you know, trying to do this and what, you know, we called light speed. That’s really what we were doing.

Scott Luton (27:59):

Yep. Uh, well said, Jim, um, being able to operate the speed of science and have the operational execution to enable that is, is a, uh, intriguing part of this story. Um, Kelly, um, really quick, there was a great Harvard business review article. Uh, we were talking about earlier today with, uh, Greg white and Kevin L. Jackson. And it talked about how, um, uh, technology and supply chain it’s really, technology’s driving highly evolving relationships and partnerships, uh, in global supply chain. That’s kind of what Jim’s speaking to is what you and I were speaking to a minute ago. Uh, and it’s remarkable what, um, what good that would do for, uh, consumers and markets, like, um, one final thing for our turnover to Kelly, uh, kind of going down the innovation path. Jim, I wanna ask you about usre decor, you know, as we have interviewed countless supply chain leaders from other organizations that were involved involved in different ways, uh, in the noble mission to protect, uh, humanity, uh, whether it’s vaccine related or, or, or related in other, um, activities, you know, time and time again, Kelly, I remember a couple more interviews we did together.

Scott Luton (29:11):

Um, you know, they folks would stop in the tracks and tell their leaders how, how this is different. You know, this is, um, this is, this is, I’ve got a whole new levels of purpose in what I do and the PRI Corps and the camaraderie that came out of that was just this, some of my favorite stories, Jim, speak to that. Uh, and what you saw happen amongst the Pfizer team, uh, as you, uh, went down and, and fulfilled this noble mission.

Jim Cafone (29:38):

Yeah. We, you know, so, you know, it’s like I, I said earlier, focusing on the patient, everybody knows a patient, right. And you know, that patient may have a healthcare challenge for one reason or another. What COVID did was COVID sort of said, wait, we have a pandemic. So 7.6, 7.7 billion people in the world could be impacted. So, um, so, you know, that was a great sort of, uh, gravity force for everybody in Pfizer. I think the other thing too is just, you know, again, you’re, you know, we’re headquartered in New York city and my God, the first quarter of 2020 in New York city was just tragic just to walk around and to see what was happening. Um, and then, you know, people were losing family members. There was a lot of different emotional things that were occurring all over that really made this, you know, the great sort of forcing mechanism for everybody advisor, you know, all 78,000 colleagues of ours. And everybody had some contribution, even if you weren’t part of the COVID vaccine, your job was to keep the base business running, um, operating rooms still needed to occur, right. Uh, hospital areas, doctors, pediatricians, all, you know, all the frontline workers that, that kept going. So, you know, it’s not like we were fortunate to sort of say, well, let’s put the entire company behind, you know, the vaccine and then we’ll stop everything else. No, that’s not what we could do. We had to do both things at the same time. Yeah. You know, so

Scott Luton (31:24):

Remarkable, uh, Kelly Barner, I’ll tell you, uh, I wish we had several hours and hours with Jim and the team, uh, cause of, I can only imagine the book that, that can, that could be written, uh, related to, um, uh, this mission, but Kelly, where are we going next with Jim?

Kelly Barner (31:42):

So we’re actually gonna find out how all the things that we’ve talked about up to this point continue today and into the future. So Jim, you’ve talked about the innovative potential that already existed within the ranks at Pfizer and how that was accelerated so that you could, I think you said move at the speed of science. You were working at light speed. You talked about how has that momentum around innovation continued to shape not only your team and your organization, but also what you can achieve going into the future.

Jim Cafone (32:15):

Yeah, so it, Kelly, it, it has forced us, you know, light speed and the light speed thinking has forced us to say, why can’t we do this for everything? You know, we, and, and, you know, I wanna give a little bit of just context during this whole project. We were our corporation. And I can tell you, you know, the corporation, in my particular situation, we, they never said, no, we put billions of dollars at risk walls were broken down. It, it was okay. Not being in a conversation. It, it broke down the entire paradigm of governance and how you should do things. Right? So now the question is, is, you know, now that we’ve done this for a product, and by the way, we’ve also it’s, it doesn’t get as much sort of focus, but we also had a second light speed project for a product we call PLI, right? So that is an oral, uh, antiviral medicine. It was also brought to the market and world record time. But what allows you to do is it allows you to say, well, if we can bring a vaccine to market in nine months, 10 months, why can’t we do this for everything? Cause at the end of the day, patients are waiting, right? Yeah. That’s, that’s really the way that it’s, it’s really fundamentally shifted the entire thinking, uh, at Pfizer.

Scott Luton (33:44):

Yeah. Kelly, I love that question. Why can’t we do this for everything? I mean, that is gonna be one of my favorite takeaways, uh, from this conversation, your thoughts, Kelly.

Kelly Barner (33:54):

Well, and it’s funny, Scott, because what I actually thought of as Jim was sharing that was Amanda. Um, I know your wife, Amanda has lots of inspirational quotes in the kitchen for, for you and the kids. <laugh> and what the little plaque in my kitchen says, what would you try if you knew you could not fail? And it’s, that’s a acute home kitchen wi but for Pfizer to do that as a global organization, that’s an entirely different lift. Um, and I have to think from a mindset standpoint and a risk tolerance standpoint, like you said, it completely broke down the paradigm and allowed you to rebuild it in a way that I’m sure we’ll be seeing positive echos from for years and years and years.

Scott Luton (34:40):

Agreed. Agreed. And I, I like that phrase. I’m gonna have to steal that one too. What would you try if you certainly could not fail? We’ll have to revisit that Kelly. Um, alright, so <laugh>, we’re gonna shift gears as we’re coming down the home stretch with, uh, Jim kaon from Pfizer Kelly, what’s one of the last couple of questions we’re gonna pick his brain on.

Kelly Barner (35:01):

We’re actually gonna kind of stay in a similarly spirited place. So Jim, given everything that you’ve seen and experienced and all the lessons you and your team have learned, if you were speaking to someone that were early in their career in supply chain, or who had recently shifted from another function to work into supply chain, what advice would you offer them?

Jim Cafone (35:25):

You know, the first thing I always like to say to anybody that’s young, you know, first starting out in their career is find your purpose and go work for a company that hopefully shares that same purpose. Okay. Um, you don’t have to work in healthcare. There’s plenty of supply chains for water, food, um, anything you can to contribute to society, right. Um, so it’s really finding your own personal purpose, your personal mission. Now that’s difficult at times for, for young, you know, graduates. Um, so what I always say is, is that don’t sweat that out too much either because you can’t really make a, a wrong decision in supply chain. Supply chain is a horizontal science. It’s not a vertical science now. There’s probably a lot of experts that would disagree with me on that. But <laugh> supply chain is a systems engineering world, right?

Jim Cafone (36:25):

You’re bringing together all sorts of people and you’re building that mosaic tile, um, that I, that I showed earlier. So try everything out and sooner or later you’ll find, you know, an organization or something you’re doing that fits the purpose that you want to do, but don’t expect it the first time out or the second job or the third job. Yeah. You just have to continue to keep trying it. And it’s one of the things that’s kept me in healthcare. You know, I talked to a young student the other day that just got a, um, a position with a company, a water company that’s, uh, you know, building filtration units for the emerging markets. I mean, there, there’s nothing better than, than water. You know, if you think you need a vaccine, the person you need when you wake up is water, right? So like there’s a lot of different things that people can do, but stay true to your purpose and, you know, accept the fact that it’s gonna take you a little bit of time to do that. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Cause at the end of the day, supply chain to some degree is supply chain. You know,

Kelly Barner (37:28):

I think that’s a fair add. I like the fact that you’re saying give it some time, you know, be on the lookout for your purpose, but I don’t expect it to be sitting on your desk your first day on the job, cuz it, it takes time. I know from my own journey, you slowly figure out how all these systems come together and operate. And so you may not even realize the total reach of the supply chain that you’re contributing to. And so you’ve really kind of absorbed how it all works together. So I, I think that’s a great piece of advice and I hope people take it

Scott Luton (37:57):

Agreed. And I like, I like your thought there. Oh, oh, it would be nice in this life. If you could show up on, on Monday morning at your desk and your purpose, be sitting there with a bone top, I know it’d make it so much easier. Wouldn’t it? Um, and coffee, what’s that joke?

Jim Cafone (38:12):

I said, it takes time, you know, look, I’m an engineer and I never thought I’d ever work at a pharmaceutical company and I wanted to do work in automotive. And um, you know, I did for a while. Um, but you know, through many zigzags through your career, you find healthcare. That was me, other people is different. So yeah, it takes time and, and that’s okay. There’s I have the, the time the fun is in the journey, not in a destination. Right.

Scott Luton (38:38):

Completely agree. Beautifully. A beautiful point to kind of wrap up today’s conversation with, um, really do you know, we’ve seen so much try not to be cliche the last couple years, you know, consumers have seen so much, consumers have really learned so much more about industry and let’s, Hey, let’s face it. Some things just didn’t work out. You know, we’ve, we we’ve talked a lot about, uh, some of the, some of the breaks and supply chain, different products. If you go in your local grocery store, you know, there’s no shortage of stories there, but you know, Jim really do appreciate, uh, what you and the Pfizers team and, and all the folks that made up the noble mission, you know, they told a much different story and educated and informed global consumers around why it’s so important to be able to do what we do in, in supply chain.

Scott Luton (39:26):

And, and of course just the, um, the front end of that, the pharmaceutical story there is, is fascinating. That just, that’s just, uh, another chapter to the story. So thank you for what you and the team continue to do, uh, and appreciate your time here today. All right. One final question. Uh, two final questions. First off Jim and, and Kelly. Kelly’s got it. Good. You know, she’s in Boston, um, Kelly, I believe you’re a Patriots fan and y’all have been spoiled, right. Trophy after trophy. Um, I’m in Atlanta, Jim. So, uh, the Falcons have had opportunities, but we’re kind of going through the, uh, a tough rebuild. So Jim, that brings me to, uh, a little fun question here. Are the jets gonna make the playoffs this year? Do you wanna offer up a fearless prediction?

Jim Cafone (40:10):

Well, as a jet fan, we always like to say they will, but we know deep down that it’s always a tough way. It takes, it takes some real true, uh, bleeding green to convince yourself that you may not make it, but that’s okay. We go to every game and, uh, you know, we always support the team. <laugh>

Scott Luton (40:30):

I love it. I love it. Wait, we’re all, uh, pulling for a return. What Vinny test the Verde leading the jets during one of their playoff runs years ago, but we’ll see how it plays out. I’m I’m glad, I think we’re all glad football is just about back with us. Um, finally, if folks wanna, uh, you know, connect with you, learn more about this fascinating story that, uh, you know, we scratch the surface on here today, or they wanna learn more about different elements of, of the Pfizer story. Some of the other things you mentioned, what’s the easiest way folks can learn more

Jim Cafone (41:00):

There’s uh, so a couple of ways. Uh, so first of all, you could just go to pfizer.com. A lot of what I said is already out there, uh, the second day, uh, secondarily, there’s a really interesting book that describes, uh, the entire vaccine story of Pfizer it’s called moonshot. Right. And, um, that was written by, um, our CEO and he describes basically, um, the, uh, this entire story. So it’s moonshot, uh, our, our CEO’s last name is Borla B O U U R L a. You can Google it, Amazon. It it’s a great, uh, read. Um, or you could certainly get a hold of me through LinkedIn, uh, email anyway, you know, to do that. And, um, like all of us at Pfizer, we’re, we’re really here for patients. So, uh, you know, anything we can do to help humanity in that way, we’re always willing to do so.

Scott Luton (41:56):

Love that Jim kaon vice president Pfizer, global supply chain. I gotta tell you, uh, Jim, thank you for your time first off.

Jim Cafone (42:05):

Thank you. It was great being here

Scott Luton (42:07):

And I

Jim Cafone (42:08):

Could have talked to you all afternoon, too, right? I agree with you

Scott Luton (42:11):

So much more. We’ll have, have to have you back, but Hey, the automotive industry’s lost, but certainly, uh, healthcare’s gained. Uh, so I’m glad that, uh, you found your purpose when you did and, and just, uh, amazed at, uh, what you and the team have accomplished. So thanks so much for joining us here, Jim. Uh, while we still have Jim, uh, Kelly Barner, right? For our wrap here, I’d love to hear your favorite takeaway from what Jim has shared here today.

Kelly Barner (42:37):

I think my favorite takeaway was, and Jim, you can correct me on the wording, but you talked about brave moments, I believe was the word that you used earlier. You know, it’s, it’s easy for all of us to sit here today and talk back over the last two years and remember that it was real, I’m glad you took us back to what it felt like in March of 2020 Jim, cuz I think as a humanity, we’re wired to try to get back to some level of stability and normal, but the decisions that were being made and the unknowns that the world was dealing with, those were very scary decisions that had to be made. And just thinking about the shift of risk tolerance and keeping the eye on the ball. I think that moonshot is a great title for a book, understanding what was at stake and sort of making sure that the risk tolerance changed correspondingly. That is something that never ceases to amaze me. And, and I think it’s good for all of us to be reminded on occasion just how uncertain it all was. But we still got to this moment that we’re at now

Scott Luton (43:38):

Beautifully said Kelly can thousand percent. Uh, I know that’s not a mathematical possibility, but I agree with you wholeheartedly, what you just shared there. Uh, Kelly Barner appreciate what you do here and at, uh, dial P for a procurement art, uh, uh, art procurement, you name it, buyer meeting point speak, thanks to what you do and thanks for being here. Uh, so to our listeners, Hey one heck of a story. Goodness gracious. Uh, and we’re just scratching the surface. So as Jim suggests to check out those follow up resources, check out the book, uh, moonshot and learn more@pfizer.com big thanks once again to Jim Kone with Pfizer, big thanks to my dear friend, Kelly Barner, uh, with the supply chain now team and, and do P for procurement. Make sure you look that up wherever you get your podcast from, but listeners, whatever you do. Gosh, there’s so many takeaways I got about 17 pages of notes from what Jim shared here today, but take action. Hey, do good. Give forward. Be the change that’s needed. And with that said, we’ll see next time, right back here at supply chain now. Thanks everybody.

Intro/Outro (44:41):

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