Pfizer struggles with revenue losses in 2023 after a record-breaking year in 2022.
This is evident from the annual report of the US pharmaceutical company, which was presented on Tuesday in New York. Compared to the previous year, revenue fell by 42 percent to 58.5 billion US dollars (54 billion euros) and profit fell by 93 percent to 2.1 billion dollars.
Particularly in the last quarter, the company had to record a billion-dollar loss. However, after adjusting for special effects, such as write-downs on the inventory of the COVID-19 drug Paxlovid and the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty, the result was better than expected by analysts.
Even the previously lowered own earnings target was exceeded. These news initially led to positive reactions on Wall Street. The Pfizer stock temporarily rose 2.67 percent to $28.22 in NYSE trading.
However, due to the weak business performance last year, the paper has lost more than 40 percent of its value overall, and there has also been a downward trend since the beginning of the year.
The success of Pfizer was closely linked to the pandemic boom, during which the company, together with its German partner BioNTech, achieved high profits from the sale of the Comirnaty vaccine.
With the end of the Corona crisis, the company now finds itself forced to look for new business areas. CEO Albert Bourla is planning to focus more on the cancer business. Last year, Pfizer acquired the specialist Seagan for 43 billion dollars and hopes to increase revenue in the future.
For the year 2024, Pfizer initially expects a stable to moderately higher revenue of $58.5 to $61.5 billion. The forecast, which was already published in mid-December and now confirmed, had caused disappointment among investors at the time and led to a loss in stock price.
Additionally, the company plans to permanently reduce its expenses by a net four billion dollars. The US bank JPMorgan assesses Pfizer based on these figures as "neutral" with a target price of 30 US dollars.
According to analyst Chris Schott, the pharmaceutical company has met revenue expectations and the lower expenses for research and development have also increased earnings per share. The outlook for 2024 remained unchanged.
