Pfizer Stock Dips After Company’s Earnings Miss Sales Estimates. Covid-19 Revenue Drops.

Pfizer said its diluted loss per share was “significantly impacted” by a $5.6 billion non-cash inventory write-off, much of it for unused doses of its Covid-19 antiviral Paxlovid.

The company also said its planned $43 billion acquisition of the cancer-focused biotech
Seagen
(SGEN) was “continuing to progress well,” and that it expects the deal to close late this year or early next.

Pfizer shares were down 0.8% in premarket trading on Tuesday morning. The company’s report comes after a grim week of earnings for its pharma peers, in which shares of a long list of drugmakers fell significantly after they issued their quarterly earnings reports.

Pfizer revenues were down 42% compared to the same quarter last year, but the company said that sales of its non-Covid products were up 10% on an operational basis. CFO David Denton said in a statement that the company remained “squarely on track” to hit its full-year non-COVID operational growth revenue target of between 6% and 8%.

“We are encouraged by the strong performance of Pfizer’s non-Covid products in the third quarter of 2023, including significant contributions from new launches and robust year-over-year growth for several key in-line brands,” CEO Albert Bourla said in the earnings release.

Sales of Comirnaty, the company’s Covid-19 vaccine, were $1.3 billion for the quarter, slightly below the $1.5 billion FactSet analyst consensus estimate. Sales of Paxlovid were $202 million. Pfizer said in mid-October that the U.S. government had returned roughly a third of the Paxlovid doses it had bought from the company, and cut its 2023 guidance for Paxlovid sales to $1 billion, from $8 billion.

Pfizer said that sales of its new respiratory syncytial virus vaccine, Abrysvo, were $375 million for the third quarter. Sales of Nurtec ODT/Vydura, which the company acquired late last year, were $233 million for the quarter.

Pfizer also reaffirmed its fiscal 2023 earnings and revenue guidance provided earlier this month.

Pfizer shares were down roughly 40% this year before the earnings announcement, hitting a new 52-week low on Friday. Management is seeking to interest investors in what have been an extraordinarily busy few months of product launches, including Abrysvo, its ulcerative colitis pill, and a meningococcal vaccine, among others.

But investors have still been focused on the company’s plummeting Covid-19 revenue.

In mid-October, Pfizer acknowledged that its initial projections for 2023 Covid-19 sales were too optimistic, while announcing a major cost-cutting program. Also in mid October, Pfizer cut its forecast for its full-year profit, saying it now expects adjusted diluted 2023 earnings of between $1.45 and $1.65 a share. That implies a loss in the second half because adjusted diluted earnings were $1.90 for the first half of the year.

Pfizer on Tuesday mantained that mid-October guidance. “Our product portfolio remains strong,” Denton said, according to prepared remarks expected to be delivered on an investor call Tuesday morning. “We expect that the cost realignment program will improve our operating margins, enhancing long-term shareholder value.”

Pfizer stock is down nearly 10% since the new forecasts emerged, though it rose 1.2% on Oct. 16, the trading day after the announcement.

The company offered no updates on a Phase 2b trial of Pfizer’s oral obesity pill danuglipron, which could compete with
Eli Lilly’s
(LLY) experimental obesity pill orfoglipron. Positive data could allow Pfizer to play in the GLP-1 space, which Lilly and
Novo Nordisk
(NVO) have so far dominated. While some analysts had anticipated new danuglipron data on Tuesday, none was forthcoming.

Most other investor questions ahead of earnings were addressed during the mid-October announcement. Whether executives can turn attention away from the Covid-19 franchise, and toward the new launches and pipeline products, remains to be seen.

Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected]