Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine and drug sale to top $50 billion in 2022

Drugmaker, Pfizer has reported having more than double of annual profits due to its sales of vaccines in 2021, forecasting that the company will make more than $50 billion in 2022 for its Covid-19 vaccine and therapeutic.

 Pfizer, whose vaccine developed with German company BioNTech wand as the first approved in the United States to counter the deadly covid-19 virus, sees slightly lower 2022 revenues for the vaccine compared with the just-finished year.

But the company says it'll be making a large amount of revenues from Paxlovid, the company’s pill for Covid-19.

Chief Executive Albert Bourla described 2021 as a “watershed year” for Pfizer, adding that the company’s efforts in the pandemic “have fundamentally changed our company forever.”

Besides vaccines, sales were mixed across Pfizer’s other divisions. Revenues dipped for internal medicine and inflammation and immunology, but rose for oncology, hospitals and rare disease.

Pfizer reported annual profits of $22 billion, more than double the 2020 level. Annual revenues nearly doubled to $81.3 billion, with $36.8 billion from the Covid-19 vaccine.

 For 2022, Pfizer expects $32 billion in revenue from Covid-19 vaccines and $22 billion in revenues from Paxlovid.

The results show how covid has transformed Pfizer, which a year ago had projected just $15 billion in Covid-19 vaccines sales in 2021 and ended up selling more than twice that amount after repeatedly lifting the forecast.

Bourla said the company is currently working on a new vaccine candidate based on the Omicron variant of Covid-19, as well as a new “potential next-generation oral Covid-19 treatment.”

Pfizer says it expects to produce 120 million treatment courses for Paxlovid, with six million in the first quarter and 30 million the first half of 2022.

The company said around 100 countries have already negotiated to buy Paxlovid. The treatment has so far been approved in about 40 countries.

Bourla said the sales for Paxlovid “could be way bigger” than current forecasts. The 2022 estimate of $22 billion is based on signed contracts and negotiations where there is essentially an agreement, he said.

Bourla said the company’s scientists “continue to monitor the Covid-19 virus and believe it is unlikely that it will be fully eradicated in the foreseeable future.”

“That said, we now have the tools — in the forms of vaccines and treatments — that we believe will help enable us to not only better manage the pandemic but also help countries move into the endemic phase,” he said.