Pfizer shares fall as 2024 revenue and profit forecast disappoints
- Shares of Pfizer fell after the drugmaker forecast 2024 revenue and profit below Wall Street's expectations.
- A continued slowdown in demand for the company's Covid vaccine and treatment Paxlovid largely drove the weakness.
- Pfizer also raised the target of its sweeping cost-cutting plan by $500 million, bringing the total to $4 billion.
Shares of Pfizer fell Wednesday after the drugmaker forecast 2024 revenue and profit below Wall Street's expectations, as it sees weak demand for its once-blockbuster Covid products.
Pfizer also raised the target of its sweeping cost-cutting plan by $500 million, bringing the anticipated total to $4 billion.
The company expects 2024 revenue of $58.5 billion to $61.5 billion. Wall Street had anticipated sales of $63.17 billion, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv.
Pfizer's forecast suggests revenue next year could fall or come in flat compared with 2023. The company expects revenue of $58 billion to $61 billion this year.
Pfizer also said it anticipates $5 billion in 2024 revenue from its Covid vaccine and $3 billion in sales from its antiviral pill Paxlovid, for a total of $8 billion from Covid products. That's far less than the $13.8 billion in combined 2024 sales analysts expected.
"While we do not expect Covid vaccination and infection rates to change materially in 2024 versus this year, we have set our Comirnaty and Paxlovid 2024 revenue expectations lower," Pfizer CFO Dave Denton told investors during a call Wednesday, referring to the company's Covid products.
The pharmaceutical giant also forecast adjusted earnings in the range of $2.05 to $2.25 per share. Analysts had expected adjusted profit of $3.16, according to LSEG.
Notably, Pfizer expects a 40-cent per share hit from financing costs related to its $43 billion acquisition of cancer drug developer Seagen, which it plans to formally close Thursday.
Shares of Pfizer closed nearly 7% lower on Wednesday, after earlier hitting a 10-year-low following the release of the forecast.
Pfizer's stock has fallen nearly 50% this year and is trading below where it was at the start of the pandemic in early 2020.
Shares of Pfizer's German Covid vaccine partner BioNTech closed 1% lower on Wednesday, while the stock of its rival Moderna closed flat.
After raking in billions of dollars from its Covid products, Pfizer has struggled to navigate a world beyond the pandemic and reassure investors about its growth potential. Pfizer is hoping to shift investor focus toward its record drug pipeline, which includes a handful of cancer drugs from Seagen.
The company expects Seagen's products to contribute $3.1 billion to 2024 revenue. Pfizer previously said it anticipates Seagen will rake in $10 billion in revenue by the end of the decade.
Seagen is a leading developer of medicine called antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs, which are designed to kill cancer cells and spare healthy ones. ADCs have become among the most desired cancer drugs, with Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb and AbbVie recently signing billion-dollar deals to access them.
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