Pfizer reported its fourth-quarter and full-year results on Tuesday, beating profit estimates and falling just short of consensus revenue expectations. The U.S. pharmaceutical giant reported $21.98 billion in net profit on revenue of $81.29 billion for 2021, mainly thanks to its Covid-19 vaccine. BNT162b2 or Comirnaty, as the drug is officially called, accounted for 45 percent of Pfizer’s revenue last year, dwarfing any other drug in the company's vast portfolio.
Pfizer, which developed the vaccine in cooperation with German biotechnology company BioNTech, manufactured more than 3 billion doses of the mRNA vaccine last year, which ended up contributing $36.8 billion to the company's record revenue. For 2022, Pfizer currently expects $32 billion in Covid-19 vaccine sales plus $22 billion in sales of its oral Covid-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid. Both estimates are based on supply contracts signed or committed to as of late January, meaning that the figures could be adjusted upwards over the course of the year.
"In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we committed to use all of the resources and expertise we had at our disposal to help protect populations globally against this deadly virus, as well as to offer treatments to help avoid the worst outcomes when infections do occur," Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said in a statement. "We put billions of dollars of capital on the line in pursuit of those goals, not knowing whether those investments would ever pay off. Now, less than two years since we made that commitment, we are proud to say that we have delivered both the first FDA-authorized vaccine against Covid-19 (with our partner, BioNTech) and the first FDA-authorized oral treatment for Covid-19.”
