With the corona drug, the pharmaceutical company wants to build a second mainstay in the treatment of Covid-19 in addition to the Comirnaty vaccine.
(Photo: AP)
Frankfurt The corona pandemic is currently subsiding in many regions, but continued to drive the business of the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer strongly in the first quarter. Mainly thanks to the Covid vaccine Comirnaty, produced jointly with Biontech, Pfizer was able to increase sales by 82 percent at constant currency to $ 25.6 billion (EUR 24.2 billion) on Tuesday and increase net profit by a good 60 percent to $ 7.8 billion (March 7). .4 billion euros) report.
The vaccine contributed $13.2 billion to more than half of quarterly sales, up from $3.5 billion in the prior-year quarter. In addition, there was the first sales contribution of the Covid drug Paxlovid of 1.4 billion dollars. Currency-adjusted sales in Pfizer’s other business, on the other hand, grew by only about five percent.
Pfizer also reiterated its previous guidance for the full year and continues to expect revenues of $98 billion to $102 billion. This corresponds to an increase of around 23 percent compared to the previous year. On a currency-adjusted basis, according to Pfizer, the stable guidance corresponds to an increase in sales guidance of around two billion dollars.
For adjusted earnings per share, Pfizer management now expects $6.25 to $6.45. That is ten cents less than previously forecast, but 44 percent more than in the previous year.
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The US group still expects $32 billion in sales from Comirnaty in 2022, although a negative sales effect of $1 billion is now included due to the appreciation of the dollar. Adjusted for currency effects, Pfizer has apparently been able to conclude additional supply contracts worth one billion dollars for Comirnaty since the beginning of February.
The Mainz-based company Biontech should therefore confirm its forecast for 2022 or even raise it slightly. So far, the biotech company that developed the vaccine expects sales of 13 to 17 billion euros for 2022. Biontech and Pfizer share the gross profit from the business with Comirnaty as part of their partnership. Distribution is largely through Pfizer, from which Biontech receives its own Comirnaty revenue share.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla continued to be confident about the potential for the vaccine on Tuesday. Comirnaty’s cumulative market share has continued to grow since January. In the USA and the most important countries in Europe, 74 percent of all people with a basic vaccination would also have received a booster vaccination, and another 13 percent were planning the third vaccination. “This is a very encouraging indicator of the potential acceptability of a fourth dose,” Bourla said. Pfizer and Biontech want to present data from studies with an additional booster vaccination and a vaccine adapted to the omicron variant in the next few weeks.
Pfizer benefits from the Covid drug Paxlovid for the first time
In addition to the vaccine business, Pfizer has meanwhile opened up another important source of sales with the Covid drug Paxlovid, which has been approved since December. For Paxlovid, the US group continues to forecast sales of around $22 billion for 2022, although Pfizer now expects a negative currency effect of $0.5 billion. All in all, the US group should therefore still show very high sales increases in the second quarter, before the growth rates flatten out again from the second half of the year.
Other pharmaceutical manufacturers are also benefiting greatly from the corona pandemic. The US competitor Merck & Co, for example, recorded a good 50 percent sales growth in the first quarter of 2022 because it booked larger sales with its Covid remedy Lagevrio for the first time. Eli Lilly, Roche and Astra-Zeneca also benefited from significantly higher sales from Covid drugs, although not as much as industry leader Pfizer.
On average, pharmaceutical companies achieved sales of Covid vaccines and medicines about four times as high in the first quarter as in the previous year. At that time, the distribution of vaccines and medicines against Covid had just started. However, experts are now assuming that the trend will reverse again after the boom in the current year.
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