For more than a year after Pfizer’s COVID product sales peaked at the end of 2022, the company’s quarterly revenues showed year-over-year declines. But now five quarters later, the drugmaker is back to growth for the first time in a boost that prompted a full-year guidance bump of $1 billion.
During the second quarter, Pfizer collected sales of $13.3 billion, a 2% uptick from last year’s second quarter and a 3% boost operationally. Taking COVID products Comirnaty and Paxlovid out of the equation, operational revenue growth totaled 14%.
Considering the company’s total haul for the first half of this year is now up by 11% to $28 billion, Pfizer opted to crank up its full-year earnings outlook by $1 billion to reflect a “strong business performance,” chief financial officer David Denton said (PDF) on the second-quarter earnings call.
That means Pfizer's 2024 revenues are now expected to fall somewhere between $59.5 billion and $62.5 billion, a 9% to 11% growth rate sans COVID product sales.
CEO Albert Bourla pointed to “exceptional growth” in Pfizer’s oncology portfolio, which delivered a 27% sales boost as newly acquired Seagen products settle in. The company closed its $43 billion buyout of cancer drug specialist Seagen in December, lining up with one of its 2024 goals of achieving “world-class oncology leadership” and prompting a restructuring that created a new Pfizer Oncology Division.
The Seagen products, which include bladder cancer med Padcev and Hodgkin’s lymphoma treatment Adcedris, among others, garnered $845 million in quarterly revenues, a steady increase from last quarter’s $742 million. The company previously forecast annual sales of the collection of Seagen products to reach $10 billion by 2030 and $3.1 billion by the end of this year.
All in all, Pfizer’s quarterly earnings results were “better than expected,” Third Bridge analyst Lee Brown wrote in a note to clients. Bristol Myers Squibb-partnered blood clot med Eliquis made up 14% of Pfizer’s revenue for the second quarter in a row. Despite the looming price impact from the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare price negotiations, Third Bridge is “becoming cautiously more optimistic” on Eliquis’ outlook given commentary from BMS that the price offered by Medicare seems manageable.
BMS led the Medicare negotiations, but Pfizer agrees that it can “navigate the impact” of the IRA on the med and that it will “be an important drug in our portfolio for the foreseeable future,” chief commercial officer Aamir Malik said on the call.
Elsewhere, the company’s Vyndaqel heart pill franchise benefited from “continued strong demand," delivering 71% sales growth during the second quarter, while migraine treatment Nurtec ODT sales rose by 44%.
JAK inhibitor Xeljanz, meanwhile, sank 34% and breast cancer med Ibrance fell by 8%, reflecting lower demand.
Still, despite the strong first half of the year, the company acknowledged that performance over the second half will require a “continuing focus” considering the seasonality aspects in its respiratory product portfolio. That includes respiratory syncytial virus vaccine Abrysvo, which could face a shake-up over RSV season after a narrowed vaccine recommendation from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
Pfizer has already had a busy year on the cost-cutting front through its efforts to save $4 billion in annual costs by the year's end. Pfizer notes that it is “on track” to deliver on that goal. The company has already unveiled a separate plan to pull savings of $1.5 billion by 2027, some of which is expected to come in 2025 through "operational efficiencies, network structure changes, and product portfolio enhancements," it said in a May filing.