It's shaping up to be a banner year for sales of Pfizer’s antiviral pill Paxlovid, but the momentum from a spate of emergency nods around the world won’t last forever, one group of analysts says.
After a sales peak in 2022, Paxlovid revenues are set to decrease from 2023 onward, thanks to a second round of booster vaccines and predictions of fewer cases that require hospitalization, data and analytics outfit GlobalData predicts.
What’s more, lackluster data recently prompted Pfizer to stop enrollment for a clinical trial weighing Paxlovid in standard-risk patients, limiting demand for the drug in that wider patient group, GlobalData said.
That's not to say the drug hasn't been a success. The GlobalData team predicts Paxlovid will generate $81 billion between 2021 and 2028. They project more than $30 billion this year alone.
Paxlovid currently reigns supreme on the COVID-19 therapeutic front, eclipsing sales of Regeneron’s Regen-Cov, Gilead Sciences’ Veklury and Merck & Co. and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics’ Lagevrio, GlobalData points out.
While GlobalData expects Paxlovid sales to drop over time, the drug will still "remain relevant in the coming years,” Camila Dalitz, an analyst at GlobalData, said in the company’s release.
Pfizer, for its part, has laid out estimates of $22 billion in Paxlovid sales this year. The company did not immediately respond to Fierce Pharma’s request for comment on GlobalData’s sales predictions.
Paxlovid got a recent boost in the U.S. after the FDA this month tweaked the med’s emergency nod to let pharmacists provide the drug to recently infected patients at risk for progressing to severe disease. The FDA’s decision came six weeks after the White House pushed for greater access to the drug.
Between Dec. 17 and July 17, there have been 5.17 million courses of Paxlovid ordered in the U.S., of which 2.78 million have been administered, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
As of this week, President Joe Biden now ranks among the world’s most-prominent Paxlovid users. The President is taking Pfizer’s antiviral after The White House disclosed his positive COVID-19 test result on Thursday.
The president is fully vaccinated and twice boosted, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a release. He was reported to be experiencing “very mild symptoms.” Previously, White House chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci took the drug for his infection.