Pfizer share price slips despite $81bn revenue as investors fear Covid-19 cliff edge
Pfizer’s share price slipped today after its fourth quarter revenue dipped below Wall Street forecasts, despite nearly doubling its full-year revenue.
Revenue came in at $23.8bn in the fourth quarter of last year, slightly below analyst estimates of $24.2bn.
The famed Covid-19 vaccine maker anticipates around $50bn in sales from its jab alone in 2022, while investors fear the coronavirus market may be headed towards its natural decline.
The share price dipped a little over four per cent to $2.25 per share.
The eventual decline of Covid-19 vaccine and antiviral-related revenue, as the pandemic recedes, will bruise the pharmaceutical giant. However, Pfizer forecasts revenue for this year to hit between $98bn and $102bn.
The company raised its Comirnaty vaccine revenue outlook to around $32bn in 2022 and added that its Paxlovid antiviral pill could generate about $22bn in revenue this year.
Paxlovid generated $76m in revenue in the fourth quarter after it received authorisation in the US in late December, as has been dubbed a ‘game changer’ in tackling the virus.
Full-year revenue
Pfizer’s total revenue swelled from $41.7bn in 2020 to $81.3bn last year, the company confirmed in its results today.
The figure, which nearly doubled, was fuelled by its Covid-19 vaccine, which accounted for $36.8bn of the total.
Profits for the full year also climbed from $9.2bn to $22bn.
Pfizer boss Albert Bourla said in a statement: “In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, we committed to use all of the resources and expertise we had at our disposal to help protect populations globally against this deadly virus, as well as to offer treatments to help avoid the worst outcomes when infections do occur.
“We put billions of dollars of capital on the line in pursuit of those goals, not knowing whether those investments would ever pay off. Now, less than two years since we made that commitment, we are proud to say that we have delivered both the first FDA-authorised vaccine against Covid-19 (with our partner, BioNTech) and the first FDA-authorized oral treatment for Covid-19.”