Pfizer's first-quarter results top estimates, while drugmaker boosts full-year profit outlook

By Eleanor Laise

Cancer and heart-disease treatments help cushion COVID product sales drop

Pfizer Inc. on Wednesday reported first-quarter profit and sales that beat analyst expectations and raised its full-year earnings guidance as cancer and heart-disease drugs helped offset plummeting COVID-19-related product sales.

The drugmaker reported net income of $3.115 billion, or 55 cents per share, down from $5.543 billion, or 97 cents per share, in the year-earlier period. Adjusted earnings per share of 82 cents, versus $1.23 a year earlier, beat the FactSet consensus of 51 cents. Revenues totaled $14.879 billion in the quarter, down 20% from a year earlier but ahead of the FactSet consensus of $13.874 billion.

An expected drop in COVID-19-related product sales, including antiviral Paxlovid and vaccine Comirnaty, drove the year-over-year revenue decline. Paxlovid sales fell 50%, to $2.035 billion globally, while Comirnaty revenues dropped 88%, to $354 million.

Pfizer is looking for a fresh start after a rocky 2023, when the stock dropped more than 40% as some of the company's guidance proved overly optimistic.

Now, the company is looking for new growth in cancer treatments and advancing its pipeline. The first-quarter results come days after Pfizer scored its first U.S. regulatory approval for a gene therapy. The Food and Drug Administration gave a green light to Beqvez, a one-time treatment for hemophilia B that will have a list price of $3.5 million. Earlier this week, Pfizer and Genmab (GMAB) announced the FDA's full approval of Tivdak for treating recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer.

Pfizer's total first-quarter oncology revenues grew 18% from a year earlier, to $3.549 billion.

Sales of the Vyndaqel group of heart-disease drugs grew 66%, $1.137 billion, amid strong demand in the U.S. and Europe, Pfizer said.

Abrysvo, the respiratory syncytial virus vaccine that got FDA approval last year, generated $145 million in sales in the first quarter.

Pfizer is facing potential new competition in the pneumococcal vaccine market from Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK), whose investigational 21-valent pneumococcal vaccine could get U.S. regulatory approval by mid-June. Pfizer's Prevnar family of pneumococcal vaccines generated $1.691 billion in sales in the first quarter, up 7% from a year earlier.

Earnings in the quarter include an 11 cents per share favorable impact reflecting the actual number of Paxlovid treatment courses that carried emergency-use authorization labels and were ultimately returned by the U.S. government, Pfizer said.

Pfizer said it is still on track to save at least $4 billion by the end of this year as it previously projected under a broad cost-cutting program.

The company reaffirmed its full-year 2024 sales guidance of $58.5 billion to $61.5 billion and boosted its adjusted earnings per share outlook to a range of $2.15 to $2.35, up from $2.05 to $2.25.

Pfizer shares (PFE) gained 1.3% premarket on Wednesday and are down 11% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 is up 5.6%.

-Eleanor Laise

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-01-24 0826ET

Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.