MamaGte: Pfizer sells $7.8 billion in Covid shots in the second quarter, raises 2021 guidance on vaccine sales

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A person walks past the Pfizer building in New York City, March 2, 2021.

Carlo Allegri | Reuters

Pfizer said Wednesday it sold $7.8 billion in Covid-19 shots in the second quarter and raised its 2021 sales forecast for the vaccine to $33.5 billion from $26 billion, as the delta variant spreads and scientists debate whether people will need booster shots.

The company's second-quarter financial results also beat Wall Street expectations on earnings and revenue. Here's how Pfizer did compared with what Wall Street expected, according to average estimates compiled by Refinitiv:

Adjusted earnings per share: $1.07 per share vs. 97 cents per share expected
Revenue: $18.98 billion vs. $18.74 billion forecast

Pfizer expects an adjusted pretax profit in the high 20% range of revenue for the vaccine.

The company now expects full-year earnings in the range of $3.95 to $4.05 per share. That's up from its prior range of $3.55 to $3.65 per share. It expects revenue in the range of $78 billion to $80 billion, up from its previous estimate of $70.5 billion to $72.5 billion.

Shares of Pfizer dipped 0.4% in premarket trading.

"The second quarter was remarkable in a number of ways," Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement. "Most visibly, the speed and efficiency of our efforts with BioNTech to help vaccinate the world against COVID-19 have been unprecedented, with now more than a billion doses of BNT162b2 having been delivered globally."

Pfizer's other business units also saw strong sales growth. Revenue from its oncology unit rose by 19% year over year to $3.1 billion. The company's hospital unit generated $2.2 billion in revenue, up 21% from the prior year. Its internal medicine unit grew by 5% from a year ago to $2.4 billion.

Pfizer said earlier this month it was seeing signs of waning immunity induced by its Covid vaccine with German drugmaker BioNTech, and planned to ask the Food and Drug Administration to authorize a booster dose. It also said it is developing a booster shot to target the delta variant.

In slides posted Wednesday alongside its earnings report, Pfizer said it could potentially file for an emergency use authorization for a booster dose with the FDA as early as August. It expects to begin clinical studies testing its delta variant vaccine in the same month.

It expects full approval for its two-dose vaccine by January 2022.