Pfizer delivered a solid set of first-quarter results, with earnings largely in line with analyst estimates and revenue beating expectations by a wide margin. There’s more good news: Amid speculation that Covid-19 sales could plummet this year, the pharmaceutical giant has reaffirmed its outlook for 2023.
Shares of Pfizer (stock ticker: PFE) jumped more than 1% in pre-market trading after the company reported earnings per share of 97 cents for the first three months of 2023, just short of analyst expectations of 98 cents. Revenue of $18.3 billion was well above expectations of $16.6 billion.
Pfizer also reaffirmed its full-year guidance for earnings between $3.25 and $3.45 a share on revenue of $67 billion to $71 billion. Comirnaty’s Covid-19 vaccine revenue is expected to be around $13.5 billion, as previously directed — something investors may focus on after speculation that Covid vaccine sales could decline this year.
“Our results for the first quarter were in line with our expectations, confirming our continued confidence in achieving operating income growth of 7% to 9% for the fiscal year 2023, excluding Covid-19 products and expected impacts on foreign exchange rates,” said the CFO. David Denton in a statement. “We expect the majority of this growth to occur in the second half of 2023, given the timing of expected launches in the near term.”
This is breaking news. Read a preview of Pfizer’s earnings below, and check back for more analysis soon.
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As Pfizer announced its first-quarter financial results Tuesday morning, the company is looking to shift investors’ attention to the future: the recent approval of a new pneumococcal conjugate vaccine for children, and the expected launch this year of its respiratory syncytial virus vaccine, which is new. A treatment for alopecia areata that could hit the market later this year.
However, investors are stuck in the recent past. Specifically, the rapidly declining revenues from the company’s massive Covid-19 franchises.
On Sunday, the Financial Times reported that Pfizer (ticker: PFE) and partner BioNTech (BNTX) are negotiating a deal to supply 70 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine annually to the European Union until 2026. Under the terms of the agreement, and according to the Financial Times, EU members will only pay half the price for unused doses.
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(mRNA), which would be banned from the EU market, but could also be a problem for Pfizer: In a note Sunday, Jefferies analyst Akash Tewari wrote that the story suggested sales of the Covid-19 vaccine would be much lower this year than Pfizer said it expected.
In its latest earnings presentation in late January, Pfizer told investors to expect $13.5 billion in sales of its Covid-19 vaccine in 2023, down from $37.8 billion in 2022. With a lower forecast for vaccine sales in the United States, the company’s revenue is likely to range of Covid-19 vaccines between $9.1 billion and $11.7 billion.
Previous Pfizer guidance implied the company would sell 250 million doses in the European Union this year, Tewari writes, far short of the 70 million reported in the FT story. Given this discrepancy, investors will be watching on Tuesday to see if the company revises guidance for Covid-19 vaccine sales downward.
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Pfizer declined to comment on Tewari’s memo. “The discussions were conducted in good faith by all parties and are kept confidential,” Pfizer said in the FT report.
The company reported earnings early Tuesday and has scheduled an investor call for 10 a.m. Analysts expect Pfizer to report earnings of $0.98 per share for the quarter, according to FactSet, down from $1.62 in the first quarter. From 2022. Sales are expected to be 16.6 USD. $1 billion for the quarter, down from $25.7 billion in the first quarter of 2022.
Shares of Pfizer are down 24.1% so far this year, and are down 19.6% over the past 12 months, as of the close of trading Friday. The stock is trading at 11 times expected earnings over the next 12 months, according to FactSet, one of the lowest price-to-earnings multiples of its peer group.
In addition to questions about the future of its Covid-19 franchise, Pfizer also faces concerns about a number of patent expirations for important products coming before the end of the decade, which the company said could result in an annual revenue loss of $17 billion.
Pfizer has lined up a number of new product launches to make up for that lost revenue, including its own RSV vaccine, which will compete with a similar vaccine from GSK (
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GSK) and its new pneumococcal vaccine in the pediatric market.
On Tuesday, investors will hear updates on the many launches, and for details on the Covid-19 erosion of revenue.
Write to Josh Nathan Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com