Tweaking Our COVID-19 Vaccine Forecast for BioNTech

BioNTech BNTX reported EUR 17.1 billion in COVID-19 vaccine revenue in 2022, slightly ahead of its EUR 16 billion-EUR 17 billion guidance and well ahead of our EUR 16 billion forecast. This was down from EUR 18.9 billion reported in 2021. Guidance for 2023 COVID-19 vaccine revenue of around EUR 5 billion is well below our prior forecast for EUR 10.6 billion, and we have lowered our forecast to account for renegotiated contracts, lower demand, and a transition to a commercial market (rather than government contract-based market) in the United States. However, rather than a two-year step down in sales in 2023 and 2024, which we had previously modeled, we now see 2024 revenue as potentially flat, with potential for growth from COVID-19 vaccine demand and new oncology launches in 2025 and beyond. We’re maintaining our $217 fair value estimate.

We still assume an average net price per dose of $70 in the U.S. for mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines beginning in 2023, assuming expected commercial list prices in the $110-$130 per dose range in the U.S. We expect Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna could achieve net pricing closer to $100, but we think this is more likely to be reserved for combination respiratory vaccines, which could start to launch by 2025. We expect mRNA vaccines to continue to dominate the COVID-19 vaccine market as we head into potential annual/seasonal booster shot campaigns similar to influenza, but with higher pricing than flu shots due to fewer competing products and the potential for mRNA combination respiratory disease vaccines. We think BioNTech is still in the process of building a sustainable competitive advantage of an economic moat in the novel mRNA vaccine and treatment market, with a pipeline focused on infectious diseases and oncology.