How much permanent change will the pandemic leave on the business world? About a year ago, Insider's newsroom asked more than 200 CEOs for their initial thoughts.
These are the people steering healthcare's future, and we got them to share their thoughts on the future of work-from-home, the industry's diversity and equity challenges, and lessons learned from the past year. (You can also check out the answers of some non-healthcare CEOs at places like Dropbox, Ogilvy, and Hooters.)
Bourla is hoping to usher in a new era at Pfizer, applying the R&D learnings from its coronavirus vaccine work to other diseases and medicines.
"We saw what we can do if we put focus, if we cut bureaucracy, if we trust scientists," Bourla told me. "That's something that needs to be repeated not only in COVID."
Insider Book Club, anyone? Senior healthcare reporter Allison DeAngelis synthesized Sen. Amy Klobuchar's 624-page book on antitrust into three digestible takeaways.
One clear conclusion is top lawmakers are looking closer and closer at the pharmaceutical industry's M&A behavior.
I'm now finishing up New York Times science writer Carl Zimmer's new book on a basic yet profound question: What is life? In touring labs making organoids and discussing viruses that invade bacteria, Zimmer shows how blurry the line can be. Hence the title: Life's Edge.
The pandemic is headed in different directions in different parts of the world.
Here in the US, things are looking up, as they have for a few weeks. 55% of adults in the US have gotten at least one shot. And the CDC recently outlined the impact that getting immunized can have on everyone's lives, including less mask-wearing outdoors.
In fact, things have gotten so cheery that there's a whole movement brewing around this summer in the US. The "sextech" market has never been hotter, according to startup founders and investors who spoke with Insider's Melia Russell and April Joyner.
It's the free market's natural reaction to calls for a "Hot Vax Summer," I suppose.
That's all great news, I guess, for America. But these domestic discussions - of shedding masks and awaiting the summer fun - are particularly jarring when considering the direness of the crisis in places like India and Brazil.
The US said it will help India out, donating vaccines, drugs, and protective gear. Still, the devastation is deeply underway, with records being routinely broken for new infections and deaths.
India's vulnerabilities also shed light on other countries that could be at risk of COVID-19 spikes, writes Aria Bendix, Insider's senior science reporter. The story reads as the latest plea for all of us to keep a bit of humility and diligence in the face of this pandemic.
