
Moonshot
Inside Pfizer's Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $19.79
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Stephen Graybill
About this listen
2022 Genesis Prize Laureate
The exclusive, first-hand, behind-the-scenes story of how Pfizer raced to create the first COVID-19 vaccine, told by Pfizer’s Chairman and CEO Dr. Albert Bourla.
A riveting, fast-paced, inside look at one of the most incredible private sector achievements in history, Moonshot recounts the intensive nine months in 2020 when the scientists at Pfizer, under the visionary leadership of Dr. Albert Bourla, made “the impossible possible”—creating, testing, and manufacturing a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine that previously would have taken years to develop.
Dr. Bourla chronicles how the brilliant, dedicated minds at Pfizer, under the enormous strains of the global pandemic, overcame a series of crises that were compounded by social and political unrest, and reveals the doubts, decisions, obstacles, and failures they encountered. As Dr. Bourla makes clear, Pfizer’s success wasn’t due to luck; it was because of preparation driven by four simple values—Courage, Excellence, Equity, and Joy.
Moonshot is a story of leadership under the most unprecedented circumstances—how Dr. Bourla, a Greek immigrant, a child of Holocaust survivors, and a veterinarian, became the head of one of the world’s largest corporations and initiated a dramatic transformation of the organization just before a global health crisis would serve to test the organization, its scientists, and its leader, like never before. Moonshot describes best practices that can be used to address the multiple, unprecedented challenges our world faces, reveals Pfizer’s implementation of scientific breakthroughs at a record-breaking pace, and offers leadership lessons that can help anyone successfully manage their own seemingly unsolvable problems. As Dr. Bourla explains, “I am sharing the story of our moonshot—the challenges we faced, the lessons we learned, and the core values that allowed us to make it happen—in hopes that it might inspire and inform your own moonshot, whatever that may be.”
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2022 Dr. Albert Bourla (P)2022 HarperAudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
The Vaccine
- Inside the Race to Conquer the COVID-19 Pandemic
- By: Joe Miller, Özlem Türeci, Ugur Sahin
- Narrated by: Nathan Osgood
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobody thought it was possible. In mid-January 2020, Ugur Sahin told Özlem Türeci, his wife and decades-long research partner, that a vaccine against what would soon be known as COVID-19 could be developed and safely injected into the arms of millions before the end of the year. The Vaccine draws back the curtain on one of the most important medical breakthroughs of our age.
-
-
Great story well told
- By James Walters on 06-27-23
By: Joe Miller, and others
-
Hidden Potential
- The Science of Achieving Greater Things
- By: Adam Grant
- Narrated by: Adam Grant, Maurice Ashley, R. A. Dickey, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in a world that’s obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distance we ourselves can travel. We underestimate the range of skills that we can learn and how good we can become. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn’t knock, there are ways to build a door.
-
-
Nope
- By Anna OConnor-McClure on 10-27-23
By: Adam Grant
-
For Blood and Money
- Billionaires, Biotech, and the Quest for a Blockbuster Drug
- By: Nathan Vardi
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Blood and Money tells the little-known story of how an upstart biotechnology company created a one-in-a-million cancer drug and how the core team—denied their share of the profits—went and did it again. In this epic saga of money and science, veteran financial journalist Nathan Vardi explains how the invention of two of the biggest cancer drugs in history became (for their backers) two of the greatest Wall Street bets of all time.
-
-
Must-read for biotech enthusiasts and scientists
- By Anonymous User on 03-16-23
By: Nathan Vardi
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Billion Dollar Molecule
- One Company's Quest for the Perfect Drug
- By: Barry Werth
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 18 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Join journalist Barry Werth as he pulls back the curtain on Vertex, a start-up pharmaceutical company, and witness firsthand the intense drama being played out in the pioneering and hugely profitable field of drug research. Founded by Joshua Boger, a dynamic Harvard- and Merck-trained scientific whiz kid, Vertex is dedicated to designing - atom by atom - both a new life-saving immunosuppressant drug and a drug to combat the virus that causes AIDS.
-
-
Book is interesting but narrator is not
- By Alexa on 05-05-23
By: Barry Werth
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
The Vaccine
- Inside the Race to Conquer the COVID-19 Pandemic
- By: Joe Miller, Özlem Türeci, Ugur Sahin
- Narrated by: Nathan Osgood
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobody thought it was possible. In mid-January 2020, Ugur Sahin told Özlem Türeci, his wife and decades-long research partner, that a vaccine against what would soon be known as COVID-19 could be developed and safely injected into the arms of millions before the end of the year. The Vaccine draws back the curtain on one of the most important medical breakthroughs of our age.
-
-
Great story well told
- By James Walters on 06-27-23
By: Joe Miller, and others
-
Hidden Potential
- The Science of Achieving Greater Things
- By: Adam Grant
- Narrated by: Adam Grant, Maurice Ashley, R. A. Dickey, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in a world that’s obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distance we ourselves can travel. We underestimate the range of skills that we can learn and how good we can become. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn’t knock, there are ways to build a door.
-
-
Nope
- By Anna OConnor-McClure on 10-27-23
By: Adam Grant
-
For Blood and Money
- Billionaires, Biotech, and the Quest for a Blockbuster Drug
- By: Nathan Vardi
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Blood and Money tells the little-known story of how an upstart biotechnology company created a one-in-a-million cancer drug and how the core team—denied their share of the profits—went and did it again. In this epic saga of money and science, veteran financial journalist Nathan Vardi explains how the invention of two of the biggest cancer drugs in history became (for their backers) two of the greatest Wall Street bets of all time.
-
-
Must-read for biotech enthusiasts and scientists
- By Anonymous User on 03-16-23
By: Nathan Vardi
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Billion Dollar Molecule
- One Company's Quest for the Perfect Drug
- By: Barry Werth
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 18 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Join journalist Barry Werth as he pulls back the curtain on Vertex, a start-up pharmaceutical company, and witness firsthand the intense drama being played out in the pioneering and hugely profitable field of drug research. Founded by Joshua Boger, a dynamic Harvard- and Merck-trained scientific whiz kid, Vertex is dedicated to designing - atom by atom - both a new life-saving immunosuppressant drug and a drug to combat the virus that causes AIDS.
-
-
Book is interesting but narrator is not
- By Alexa on 05-05-23
By: Barry Werth
-
The Messenger
- Moderna, the Vaccine, and the Business Gamble That Changed the World
- By: Peter Loftus
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the start of 2020, Moderna was a waning biotech unicorn, still years away from delivering its first product despite a decade of development of a potentially breakthrough innovation: using RNA to combat disease. Investors were getting antsy or, worse, skeptical. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit, and Moderna became a central player. Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Loftus brings the inside story of how Moderna went all in on a single revolutionary idea.
By: Peter Loftus
-
Breaking Through
- Communicating to Open Minds, Move Hearts, and Change the World
- By: Sally Susman
- Narrated by: Sally Susman
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sally Susman, the renowned head of corporate affairs at global biopharmaceutical giant Pfizer, tells the fascinating story of how the multinational managed the massive communications challenge that came with COVID and the race to produce an effective vaccine. Just as crucial as creating the vaccine itself was the task of winning people's hearts and minds, and Susman highlights the principles that enabled her to break through, connect, and help move people forward, not only at Pfizer but over a stellar career.
-
-
Great Communication Tips for Business Leaders
- By Nur Amin H. on 03-20-24
By: Sally Susman
-
From Breakthrough to Blockbuster
- The Business of Biotechnology
- By: Donald L. Drakeman, Lisa N. Drakeman, Nektarios Oraiopoulos
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning in the 1970s, several scientific breakthroughs promised to transform the creation of new medicines. As investors sought to capitalize on these Nobel Prize-winning discoveries, the biotech industry grew to thousands of small companies around the world. Each sought to emulate what the major pharmaceutical companies had been doing for a century or more, but without the advantages of scale, scope, experience, and massive resources. From Breakthrough to Blockbuster focuses on both the companies themselves and the broader biotech ecosystem that supports them.
-
-
Wonderful book!
- By Momo Abbasi on 04-28-24
By: Donald L. Drakeman, and others
-
The Song of the Cell
- An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of The Emperor of All Maladies, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and The Gene, a #1 New York Times bestseller, comes his most spectacular book yet, an exploration of medicine and our radical new ability to manipulate cells. Rich with Mukherjee’s revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer’s exploration of what it means to be human.
-
-
Beyond Words Wonderful
- By Lynn on 11-27-22
-
Number Go Up
- Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall
- By: Zeke Faux
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2021 cryptocurrency went mainstream. Giant investment funds were buying it, celebrities like Tom Brady endorsed it, and TV ads hailed it as the future of money. Hardly anyone knew how it worked—but why bother with the particulars when everyone was making a fortune from Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, or some other bizarrely named “digital asset”? As he observed this frenzy, investigative reporter Zeke Faux had a nagging question: Was it all just a confidence game of epic proportions? What started as curiosity—with a dash of FOMO—would morph into a two-year globe-spanning quest.
-
-
Phenomenal story
- By Michael on 10-05-23
By: Zeke Faux
-
Chip War
- The Quest to Dominate the World's Most Critical Technology
- By: Chris Miller
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing.
-
-
Great history, but could poor narration
- By Lily Wong on 10-26-22
By: Chris Miller
-
How to Prevent the Next Pandemic
- By: Bill Gates
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton, Bill Gates
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The COVID-19 pandemic isn’t over. But even as governments around the world try to get it under control, they’re also starting to talk about what happens next. How can we prevent another pandemic from killing millions of people and devastating the global economy? Can we even hope to accomplish this? Bill Gates believes the answer is yes, and he has written a largely upbeat book that lays out clearly and convincingly what the world should learn from COVID-19, explains the science of fighting pandemics, and suggests what all of us can do to help prevent another one.
-
-
excellent in-depth review of pandemics
- By Do42 on 05-21-22
By: Bill Gates
-
The Code Breaker
- Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a “compelling” (The Washington Post) account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies.
-
-
Except for the author, this book is good!
- By Johan on 03-14-21
By: Walter Isaacson
-
The Antidote
- Inside the World of New Pharma
- By: Barry Werth
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1989, the charismatic Joshua Boger left Merck, then America's most admired business, to found a drug company that would challenge industry giants and transform health care. Barry Werth described the company's tumultuous early days during the AIDS crisis in The Billion-Dollar Molecule, a celebrated classic of science and business journalism. Now he returns to tell a riveting story of Vertex's bold endurance and eventual success.
-
-
For me this was not interesting
- By Yan on 06-26-17
By: Barry Werth
-
Freezing Order
- A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
- By: Bill Browder
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail in 2009, Browder cast aside his business career and made it his life’s mission to pursue justice for Sergei. One of the first steps of that mission was to uncover who had killed Sergei and profited from the $230 million corruption scheme that he had exposed. As Browder and his team tracked the money that flowed out of Russia—through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas—they discovered that Vladimir Putin himself was one of the beneficiaries of the crime.
-
-
Red Notice Part II —- The Empire Struck Out
- By R. Alembik on 04-16-22
By: Bill Browder
-
Build
- An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
- By: Tony Fadell
- Narrated by: Tony Fadell, Roger Wayne
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tony Fadell led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone and Nest Learning Thermostat and learned enough in 30+ years in Silicon Valley about leadership, design, startups, Apple, Google, decision-making, mentorship, devastating failure and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia.
-
-
Best guide for start up founders, ever!!!
- By Curly Beard on 05-28-22
By: Tony Fadell
-
Bad Blood
- Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
- By: John Carreyrou
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the next Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with its breakthrough device, which performed the whole range of laboratory tests from a single drop of blood. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.5 billion.
-
-
Extreme retaliation against former employees
- By LEE on 05-29-18
By: John Carreyrou
What listeners say about Moonshot
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Kunde
- 06-01-22
A bit self-absorbed and far away from the science
Look, I'm sure this CEO is a great manager of large organizations else he wouldn't be where he is, but from the book it is abundantly clear that he thinks about people and organizations a lot more than about the science and tech built by those people.
My point is, for such a person if he had managed the apollo program or Google or basically anything similar the resulting book would read the same and it isn't particularly interesting to people like me.
If you want to know more about the development process of the vaccine and what is cool about this particular vaccine the I highly recommend listening to "The Vaccine" about the Biontech founders instead. "The Vaccine" is the book about the people who made and understand the vaccine. "Moonshot" is only the book about those who scaled it's testing and production.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mike Lake
- 05-14-23
Incredible, consuming, history.
Worthy and historical. A valuable read and C a historic record for everyone to learn from.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brian T. Ducey
- 04-03-22
Interesting story, mediocre performance
This was a story I wanted to hear, and it was interesting although the Stephen Graybill performance was less than convincing.
If the author had narrated ,I believe it would've been more effective. One of the surprise insights in the story was the peek inside complicated large pharmaceutical company decisions, actions and multi national regulations. I came away very impressed with the Pfizer team and their dedication to the "cure".
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Shaoping Wu
- 07-25-22
A history of making we habe been all experienced
Inspiring, compassionate, thoughtful, scientific, innovative, direction, future, and leadership! Love the book! Thank you Albert from my heat.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Frequent shopper!
- 06-21-22
A riveting front row seat on a remarkable breakthrough for mankind.
Albert Bourla’s story of the MRNA COVID vaccine provides an in-depth and remarkable personal account of this breakthrough vaccine.
Personal and insightful with a clarity that has been hard to find a n all that has been written snit COVID.
Additionally we learn how this endeavor changed a company and it’s culture with far reaching impact on how we manage and cure diseases in the future.
A great read!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Vicki D. Jackman
- 08-14-22
Fascinating behind the scenes look!
Fascinating book! Quick and easy listen that I plowed through on Audible one afternoon on a road trip. Really interesting to see how the private sector really came through in a global pandemic. Loved the fact that the book wasn’t overly technical but instead focused on doing things differently when the stakes could not have been higher. As a management professional though, I was a little put off by the many accolades and kudos that Dr. Bourla gave himself throughout the book. Would be interesting to see a word count of the # of times he said “I” vs. “We” in the book. Also, there was a bit of politics peppered in and at times what felt like a Pfizer PR cleanup attempt. Overall though, really enjoyed hearing about this incredible COVID-19 scientific breakthrough!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Erik Britt-Webb
- 04-10-22
insightful perspective on Pfizer's moonshot
definitely great perspective on all that went into Pfizer's historic breakthrough for COVID vaccine. Felt sometimes like the author used "I" a little too much, rather than sharing the credit, but overall a well balanced narrative.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!