Pfizer Inc. PFE 0.40% said Tuesday that surging sales of its Covid-19 treatment and continued demand for its shots will likely boost the company’s revenue to around $100 billion this year.
The pharmaceutical company estimated that sales of Paxlovid, a pill aimed at reducing severe outcomes from the virus, will reach about $22 billion in 2022. Pfizer’s vaccine for the virus will likely add $32 billion in revenue, Pfizer said, an increase from Pfizer’s most recent guidance.
Pfizer forecast $98 billion to $102 billion in revenue for 2022 that, if achieved, would represent significant gains from development of America’s most widely used vaccine for Covid-19 and a pill that has become a promising treatment for the coronavirus as it has mutated into new dominant variants.
It would follow a year in which the vaccine’s success produced a step change in Pfizer’s revenue trend.
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In the last three months of 2021, Pfizer’s vaccine achieved $12.5 billion in sales, contributing to overall revenue of $23.84 billion. Paxlovid, cleared by the Food and Drug Administration just before the quarter ended, added $76 million in sales. A year earlier, Pfizer’s fourth-quarter revenue was $11.63 billion.
Adjusted earnings grew to $1.08 a share, from 43 cents a share in the year-ago quarter. Analysts polled by FactSet had forecast adjusted earnings of 87 cents a share on sales of $24.16 billion.
Shares were down by about 3.8% in premarket trading Tuesday after Pfizer posted its fourth-quarter results.
About 121.4 million Americans have received the initial two-dose course of Pfizer’s vaccine, which the company co-developed with BioNTech SE. That is far more than those who have gotten vaccines made by other manufacturers. Around 74.8 million people have been fully vaccinated with Moderna Inc.’s shot.
Pfizer’s booster shots have also seen the greatest use in the U.S. Nearly 50 million have been administered.
Meanwhile, the company’s Paxlovid treatment has emerged as a promising treatment for preventing severe disease from the virus. Unlike earlier therapies that are administered intravenously, Paxlovid comes in the form of pills that can be taken at home, easing distribution.
Early lab tests have shown that Paxlovid is active against the Omicron variant of Covid-19. Those results represent a leg up compared with earlier antibody-based treatments, some of which have appeared not to work as well against Omicron because of how the coronavirus has evolved.
Write to Matt Grossman at [email protected]
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