Washington, May 3 (BUS): Sales of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments helped Pfizer beat Wall Street expectations for the first quarter, as the drugmaker’s profit grew 61%.
The Comirnaty coronavirus vaccine generated more than $13 billion in sales this quarter, and the company is still trying to expand the market for preventive shots, AP reports.
Pfizer leaders said Tuesday that they expect to provide regulators by early June with data on the effectiveness of a smaller group of three-shot vaccine in children under five.
Currently, only children 5 years of age or older can be immunized with the Pfizer vaccine in the United States.
The birth control pill treatment Paxlovid, which launched late last year, added another $1.5 billion in the first quarter.
All of that helped boost the company’s revenue 77%, compared to last year’s quarter, when vaccine sales were still increasing.
Overall, Pfizer on Tuesday reported net income of $7.86 billion and adjusted earnings of $1.62 per share for the first quarter.
That easily exceeded the $1.49 per share industry analysts had expected, according to a survey by FactSet.
Revenue was $25.66 billion, also beating Wall Street expectations of $24.1 billion.
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine was launched in late 2020 and became the drug company’s best-selling product by the second quarter of last year.
Pfizer withholds the vast majority of revenue from Comirnaty and the division of profits, as well as the cost of making and distributing the vaccine, with development partner BioNTech.
Sales of this vaccine beat analysts’ expectations for the quarter, but revenue from Baxiloid slumped.
Pfizer said it still expects Commernati to generate about $32 billion in sales this year, with Baxolvid reporting about $22 billion.
Pfizer’s stock hit an all-time high of $61.71 on Dec. 20. But that price is down 18% so far this year, a sharper drop than the roughly 13% drop for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
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