Pfizer shares with gains: Thanks to corona vaccination and medication, Pfizer has had a strong start to the year

Sales and earnings jumped even faster than analysts had expected anyway. The drug giant earned more than 13 billion US dollars from the Comirnaty mRNA vaccination, which was marketed jointly with the German biotech company BioNTech, as Pfizer announced on Tuesday in New York. Across the group, sales in the first quarter rose by almost 80 percent year-on-year to almost $25.7 billion (€24.4 billion).

The sale of the Corona pill Paxlovid, which is intended to prevent a severe course of the disease, is now gaining momentum. The drug received emergency approval in the USA last December and is now also on the market in Europe. After Pfizer had generated double-digit million sales with the pill in the final quarter, Paxlovid already brought in one and a half billion dollars in the past quarter.

However, it is primarily these two preparations that are currently driving growth at Pfizer. Calculated without this, the group’s own earnings increased by only two percent. The bottom line is that the world’s largest drug manufacturer earned almost 7.9 billion dollars in the reporting period, which was 61 percent more than in the first quarter of the previous year, which was already successful thanks to the vaccination. “I am very proud of our development,” said Pfizer boss Albert Bourla according to the announcement.

For JPMorgan analyst Chris Schott, the dominant question is how long the tailwind from the pandemic will continue for Pfizer. In the long term, the group will also need progress in drug development in its core business, the expert stated.

According to Schott, Pfizer had earned more with Comirnaty in the past quarter than analysts had on the slip, but Paxlovid fell short of market expectations due to timing effects in production. In comparison to the corona pill from the competitor Merck & Co, the drug had achieved significantly less.

Pfizer’s board of directors has set a goal of earning a total of $22 billion from Paxlovid this year. This value, which was already established in February, will not be shaken, it said, despite a negative currency effect of around half a billion dollars that is now foreseeable. For Comirnaty, 32 billion dollars are still planned for 2022 – which means that Pfizer is preparing for a drop in sales of around 5 billion dollars compared to the previous year.

The goal of boosting group sales to a record level of between 98 and 102 billion dollars also remains in place. Due to a negative effect from a new accounting regulation, however, the forecast for adjusted earnings per share (EPS) was cut to between 6.25 and 6.45 dollars. Originally, ten US cents more were planned here, the relevant negative effect was estimated at eleven cents.

With a view to the Ukraine war, company director Bourla also announced that he would maintain the supply of medicines in Russia – but all profits from the Russian business would be made available for humanitarian purposes.

In trading on the NYSE, Pfizer shares rose 1.97 percent to $49.29.

/tav/ngu/he

NEW YORK (dpa-AFX)

Image Sources: Molly Woodward / Shutterstock.com, Rob Wilson / Shutterstock.com