Pfizer reported a sharp drop in sales and billions of dollars in losses amid waning demand for COVID-19 products/
Pfizer on Tuesday reported a deep revenue slump and billions of dollars in losses as sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral treatment slowed sharply as many Americans seem to have put the pandemic behind them.
Pfizer’s total third-quarter revenues totaled $13.2 billion, a decrease of $9.4 billion, or 42 percent, compared to the year-ago quarter, the company said in a release on Oct. 31. The drop is mostly due to a slump in sales of its COVID-19 products, the company said.
Softer demand led Pfizer to report a $3.1 billion decline in third-quarter sales of its COVID-19 vaccine, a drop of 70 percent. Sales of Paxlovid, the company’s COVID-19 antiviral pill, dropped by $7.3 billion, or a whopping 97 percent in the third quarter.
This led Pfizer to report $2.4 billion in losses in terms of reported net income in the third quarter, compared to $8.6 billion in profit in the same quarter last year.
Adjusted income, another measure of profitability, was a negative $968 million in the third quarter, after posting a $10.2 billion profit in the year-ago quarter.
Pfizer also reported on Tuesday that it was forced to take a $5.6 billion in non-cash inventory write-offs due to declining demand for its COVID-19 products.
The hit to Pfizer’s bottom line comes as the COVID-19 public-health emergency in the United States ended in May and many Americans consider the pandemic—as well as the various controversial restrictions on business and movement that accompanied it—as consigned to the dustbin of history.
Even though new strains of the virus continue to circulate, infections and hospitalizations remain well below their peak levels, with demand waning for various COVID-19 products.
Recent data show that vaccine uptake appears to be relatively slow this season. Around 10 million people, or roughly 3 percent of Americans, have received a COVID-19 booster. That figure is up from 7 million a week before.
“We have rebased our COVID expectations,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said on a call with investors to discuss the quarterly results.
By Tom Ozimek
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