Pfizer Inc.'s Covid-19 vaccine is poised to knock AbbVie Inc.'s Humira off the top perch and become the best-selling medication in pharmaceutical industry history.
The New York-based firm said revenue generated by the coronavirus shot it developed along with partner BioNTech SE will total $26 billion in 2021. That will enable the vaccine to shoot past the mega-blockbuster inflammatory drug Humira and push Pfizer's sales forecast for the year to between $70.5 billion and $72.5 billion, doubling its 2020 total.
The sales numbers for the vaccination could go even higher, given the partners expect to manufacture 2.5 billion doses this year. As a result, about 900 million shots could still be sold. Pfizer and BioNTech split vaccine sales after deducting the cost of the products, although Pfizer records the "vast majority" of global revenue.
Sales of the Covid vaccine helped boost Pfizer's earnings in the first quarter to 93 cents, blowing well past the Zacks estimate of 79 cents and topping last year's number by 47%. Revenue of $14.6 billion bested the Zacks estimate by more than $1 billion.
We'll learn the impact vaccination sales had Moderna Inc., the other major provider, when the Boston-area biotech reports first-quarter results on May 6. In February, Moderna said it had signed advance purchase agreements totaling $18.4 billion for this year.
In its annual forecast for global drug spending, the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science said the market for Covid vaccines is expected to total $157 billion through 2025, reaching $53 billion this year and $51 billion in 2022. The group sees a large falloff in total sales in 2023, not because of lower demand but due to price drops.
"We think the prices will keep coming down as we get beyond this immediate period of trying to get everyone vaccinated," IQVIA's Executive Director Murray Aitken said. "There are 11 vaccines in use in one part of the world or the other and there may be more coming, so we can expect that prices will decline over time."
IQVIA believes that by the end of the year, 40% of the world's population will be in countries that have achieved herd mentality, and by the end of 2022, 70% of the world's population will be vaccinated.
In the past year, Pfizer shares have gained 13% to near $40. The company pays an attractive dividend that yields just short of 4%. As expected, the Covid vaccine has been a bigger bonanza for much smaller Moderna, whose stock has nearly tripled in the past 12 months to $172.40.
