The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology will be awarding an honorary doctorate to Pfizer CEO and chairman Dr. Albert Bourla for his "extraordinary achievement" in leading the record time development of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, Technion President Professor Uri Sivan announced this month.
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The Pfizer vaccine is expected to serve as a model for the development of a wide range of future mRNA-based treatments.
"Dr. Bourla headed the trailblazing effort to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus," explained Sivan. "In his 27 years with Pfizer, Dr. Bourla promoted multiple areas within the company, among them technological innovation … Dr. Bourla's family history, as a son of Holocaust survivors from Thessaloniki, is a symbol of the remarkable vitality of the Jewish people, their liveliness, and their renewal capacity in the wake of the Holocaust."
Bourla said he was "moved and honored" to hear he would be receiving a degree from "such an important and historical institution as the Technion. In my youth, I considered studying at the Technion; this is an emotional closure for me," he said.
