Pfizer now sees $33.5bn in 2021 Covid sales

NEW YORK: Pfizer sharply increased its 2021 projection for revenues tied to its Covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday, forecasting the delivery of 500 million more doses compared with earlier expectations.

The US drugmaker, which has partnered with Germany’s BioNTech on the vaccine, estimates delivering 2.1 billion doses, generating $33.5 billion in sales. The company’s May forecast was for $26 billion in sales.

Pfizer also lifted its full-year profit outlook as well as the expected range for 2021 revenues.

Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said more than a billion doses of the vaccine have been delivered, saying “the speed and efficiency of our efforts with BioNTech to help vaccinate the world against Covid-19 have been unprecedented.”

Pfizer said the pre-tax profit margin on the Covid-19 vaccine sales was in the “high-20s” in terms of per cent, the same as the earlier forecast.

Pfizer reported second-quarter profits of $5.6 billion, up 59 per cent from the year-ago period on 92 per cent increase in revenues to $19 billion.

Pfizer has launched clinical studies on a possible third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine as a booster shot. Bourla has said such boosters could amount to a “durable” revenue stream for the company.

US health officials have thus far not far backed a third shot for the broad population, but officials are studying the need for a third shot in immunocompromised people.