In an earnings report issued Tuesday, the pharmaceutical giant also estimated that sales of its vaccine and anti-viral pill will top $54 billion in 2022, buoying shareholders’ hopes that profits at the company might soar for the second year in a row.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the company plans to aggressively expand the use of messenger RNA beyond just COVID vaccines, pointing to potential treatments of muscle, the liver and nervous system, despite warnings from many researchers that the use of mRNA technology carries significant risks.
Despite record earnings, Pfizer shares fell 3% yesterday on Wall Street due to lower than expected 2022 sales forecasts for its anti-viral pill, Paxlovid, which it sells at $530 a course in the United States.
Anti-viral pills like ivermectin, which health chiefs have sought to ban or restrict, typically sell for a few dollars when available, with several scientists suggesting the much-maligned pills are more effective than those produced by Pfizer.
Pfizer said its overall sales in 2022 across the company’s product range could reach $102 billion.
“In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we committed to use all of the resources and expertise we had at our disposal to help protect populations globally against this deadly virus, as well as to offer treatments to help avoid the worst outcomes when infections do occur,” Bourla said yesterday. “We put billions of dollars of capital on the line in pursuit of those goals, not knowing whether those investments would ever pay off.”
Reacting to the earnings on Twitter, some commentators remarked on how beneficial mass-vaccination programs had been to the company’s balance sheet.
Bourla also said yesterday that Pfizer’s vaccine for the Omicron variant would not be ready for distribution until March, casting further doubt on calls from health officials and mainstream media outlets to vaccinate people now with shots made for previous variants.
The CEO acknowledged that the eradication of COVID is unlikely to be achieved because of mutations and the virus’ global spread, with some scientists previously warning that new vaccines were contributing to the growth of variants.Was mass vaccinating in the public’s interest or Pfizer’s? https://t.co/ojPAhfiCNE
— Lisa Boothe (@LisaMarieBoothe) February 8, 2022