Pfizer CFO Dave Denton goes Inside the ICE House to discuss how the company is navigating its post‑COVID transition and positioning itself for a return to sustainable growth later this decade. He details Pfizer’s major strategic investments in oncology and metabolic health, including the Seagen and Metsera deals, and explains how proven platforms, global scale, and financial discipline are central to those moves. Denton also shares how execution, patient‑centric innovation, and emerging technologies like AI are shaping the next chapter of Pfizer’s growth story.

Episode 527: Pfizer CFO Dave Denton on Oncology, Obesity, and Pfizer’s Next Growth Cycle

Inside the ICE House

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Inside the ICE House

## Transcript

Welcome in to another episode of the Inside the ICE House podcast. Today's guest is Dave Denton. He is the CFO of Pfizer. Dave, thanks so much for joining us Inside the ICE House. Happy to have you here. Dave Denton Awesome to be here. Appreciate you hosting me today. Dave Denton Let's start with the big picture. When you look at Pfizer in 2026, after major acquisitions, pipeline expansion, and shifts across the health landscape, all things we will discuss at length during this conversation,

how would you describe the current state of the company today, and what is most defining Pfizer right now? Dave Denton Interesting. We're coming into a phase where we have a fairly significant amount of either new starts of pipeline assets within our research and development portfolio, and a bunch of readouts from a clinical perspective into 26. But maybe just a little bit of history lesson, just real quickly. Pre-COVID, the company had about $50 billion in revenue.

It peaked at about $100 billion through COVID, $55 billion of that being the COVID franchise. That COVID franchise has now shrunk to about $5 billion. So, we had a big windfall, if you will, as we went through that period. Dave Denton During that period, the proceeds that we earned through COVID, we reinvested back in the business. And we did it. We reinvested through business development, and we reinvested within our pipeline.

All with the focus of driving growth by 29 and 30. Because we are faced with a bunch of LOEs, which I'm sure we'll go through that a little bit. So, our focus now is to make sure that we're investing appropriately over the next two or three years, such that 29 and 30, Pfizer returns to a really solid growth platform. Aaron. And let's talk about some of those investments. And let's specifically look at ones that were brought into the company. Now, Pfizer has made a big investment in oncology, especially with the recent acquisition of Seigen for $43 billion.

When you think about just the global cancer burden and the advancements that we've seen in targeted therapies over the last bunch of years, what made you and the leadership team conclude that now was the right time to lean heavily into oncology and go after a company like Seigen? Yeah. Well, clearly, oncology and cancer, there's a huge unmet patient need. At the moment, I'll give you a good example. Lung cancer, as an example. By the end of the decade, lung cancer by itself will be a $70 billion global franchise.

And so, these are big markets with big unmet patient needs. Seigen brought forth a leading ADC platform that allowed us to now enhance our research and platform in the oncology space and supplement it with what we already had within Pfizer. So, leading into bladder cancer, lung cancer, blood cancer,

and prostate cancer is kind of our four big focus areas. And Seigen really is allowing us to advance those therapies very rapidly at this poin...

Episode 527: Pfizer CFO Dave Denton on Oncology, Obesity, and Pfizer’s Next Growth Cycle

Transcript

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Episode 527: Pfizer CFO Dave Denton on Oncology, Obesity, and Pfizer’s Next Growth Cycle

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.