Frankfurt After a noticeable drop in sales in the second quarter, the Mainz-based biotech company Biontech expects demand for Covid vaccines to increase again in the fourth quarter of the year. Like that of the partner Pfizer and the competitor Moderna, Biontech has therefore not changed its forecast for the year as a whole. Sales of 13 to 17 billion euros are still expected, as can be seen from the interim report for the second quarter that has now been presented.
The forecast is based on previous orders and an expected increase in demand for Covid vaccines that are adapted to the omicron variant of the virus. “We expect an increase in demand in our key markets in the fourth quarter due to our progress with the variant-adapted Covid-19 vaccine candidates, subject to regulatory approval,” said CFO Jens Holstein.
Biontech and its partner Pfizer want to come up with two bivalent vaccines in the fall: On the one hand, a vaccine that is aimed at the wild type and the omicron variant BA.1 and has now been submitted to the European Medicines Agency EMA, but not to the US Food and Drug Administration FDA.
The other is a vaccine containing mRNA sequences of the wild type and the omicron subvariant BA.4/5. Biontech and Pfizer want to submit this vaccine to the FDA and also to the EMA. Clinical trials for this vaccine are expected to start this month. Biontech and Pfizer want larger quantities of the vaccine to be available in October.
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The two-pronged strategy results primarily from the somewhat different signals from the registration authorities. The FDA has been relatively clear in favor of a bivalent Covid vaccine with elements of the omicron subvariant BA.4/5, while the EMA has not yet expressed a preference in this regard.
Biontech makes more profit than Bayer and Boehringer
According to their own statements, Biontech and Pfizer have so far signed orders for the delivery of around 2.5 billion doses for 2022, of which around 1.2 billion doses were invoiced in the first half of the year. The market share in the global Covid vaccine business has improved from 52 to 63 percent.
In anticipation of modified vaccines, many countries, including the EU, have postponed the procurement of vaccines until autumn, which is also clearly reflected in Biontech’s sales figures.
For the second quarter, the Mainz-based company reported a relatively sharp drop in sales to 3.2 billion euros, compared to 5.3 billion euros in the previous year. Net profit fell by 40 percent to 1.7 billion euros.
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In the first half of the year, on the other hand, the sales of the Mainz-based biotech company grew by 30 percent to almost 9.6 billion euros thanks to high deliveries in the first quarter. In the same period, operating profit improved by 19 percent to almost seven billion euros, net profit by more than a third to around 5.4 billion euros, after 3.9 billion euros in the first half of 2021. Biontech thus remains the sales and most profitable German pharmaceutical companies ahead of Bayer and Boehringer.
The financial strength of the Mainz-based company has also improved thanks to the high vaccine yields. At the end of June, Biontech had a cash position of EUR 9.3 billion and trade accounts receivable of EUR 10.4 billion. The latter result primarily from Biontech’s claims against its partner Pfizer, with which Biontech shares the gross profit from the Covid vaccine business.
The lion’s share of Biontech’s sales also consists of the profit shares from the partnership. Biontech only posts direct vaccine sales in Germany and Turkey, while Pfizer supplies the rest of the world except China.
The high financial reserves continue to give the biotech company great scope for expanding product development, both in the area of Covid and in oncology. As far as cancer drugs are concerned, Biontech is now testing 18 substances in 23 clinical studies. Phase 1 studies have been started for two new product candidates in recent months.
>>Read more about this: Innovation boom in oncology: the new miracle cure for cancer
Among other things, the company says it is making preparations for approval-relevant studies with a cancer vaccine against pancreatic cancer and a new, innovative cell therapy against various other types of tumors. Encouraging data from early clinical studies have been published for these projects in recent weeks. A few days ago, Biontech expanded its cooperation with the Belgian biotech company Genmab.
In the Covid area, meanwhile, Biontech and Pfizer have recently started the first clinical trials with a next-generation vaccine candidate. The aim here is to develop vaccines that offer longer and broader protection against various Sars-CoV variants. The two companies intend to test other product candidates of this type in the first clinical studies in the second half of the year.
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