COVID-19 drug demand remains sluggish, following Pfizer, BioNTech also issues a warning!

Once a pharmaceutical giant that made a fortune from COVID-19-related drugs, the company is now facing a sharp decline in revenue due to the shrinking demand for these businesses.

On Monday, biopharmaceutical giant BioNTech issued a statement stating that its third-quarter performance report may incur a write-down and other expenses of up to approximately $900 million for its COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty, which it developed in collaboration with Pfizer. This amount is equivalent to half of the gross profit that the company shares with Pfizer.

As most of BioNTech's revenue comes from profit-sharing arrangements with Pfizer for the vaccine, the company expects that the write-down will impact its revenue in 2023.

BioNTech will release its third-quarter performance report on November 6. Previously, it was estimated that the company's revenue from the COVID-19 vaccine this year would be approximately €5 billion (about $5.3 billion). A company spokesperson has declined to comment on the performance outlook for 2023.

BioNTech's European stock price fell 7% to a two-month low on Monday, and its US stock price fell more than 7% before the market opened.

Due to concerns about the unpredictability of COVID-19 vaccine demand and a lack of confidence in how the company will utilize the substantial profits it has earned in the past two years, BioNTech's stock price has fallen by 70% since reaching its peak in August 2021.

BioNTech stated that most of the write-down is related to raw materials purchased during the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly lipids related to formulation and COVID-19 vaccine inventory for non-XBB.1.5 variants. This write-down does not involve the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the two companies for the XBB.1.5 variant, which has been approved and is being sold in major regions.

Although BioNTech may face a write-down of up to $900 million, this amount is still much smaller than the write-down incurred by its partner Pfizer.

Prior to BioNTech's statement, Pfizer had already lowered its expected revenue guidance for its COVID-19 oral drug Paxlovid and vaccine Comirnaty, and lowered its full-year revenue guidance by more than 10% and its annual EPS guidance by over half.

Pfizer stated that the main reasons for lowering the revenue guidance for COVID-19-related drugs are weak demand, a significant decrease in expected revenue from COVID-19-related drugs, and increased related costs. Pfizer has lowered its revenue forecast for Paxlovid this year by about $7 billion, including a $4.2 billion decrease in non-cash revenue from 7.9 million treatment courses authorized for emergency use by the US government (EUA), and a revenue decrease caused by the delay in commercialization from the second half of this year to January next year.

Due to lower vaccination rates than expected, Pfizer has lowered its full-year revenue forecast for the Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine by about $2 billion.

Pfizer also stated that due to lower-than-expected utilization of COVID-19-related products, $5.5 billion in non-cash expenses were recorded in the sales cost in the third quarter of this year, mainly due to a $4.6 billion write-off of Paxlovid inventory and a total of $900 million in write-offs and other expenses related to Comirnaty.

At the same time, Pfizer announced the launch of a company-wide "cost adjustment plan" to re-adjust costs based on long-term revenue expectations, with a target of saving at least $3.5 billion, including $1 billion this year and $2.5 billion next year.

Pfizer hinted that a significant measure to save costs would be a large-scale layoff, stating that the implementation of the new cost plan is expected to generate one-time costs of approximately $3 billion, mainly including severance pay and related implementation costs.

Pfizer stated that for the remaining time this year, it will continue to refine its goals of saving funds and related costs, and will incorporate these goals into the guidance for the full year of next year.

After announcing a sharp cut in performance guidance and hinting at large-scale layoffs, Pfizer's stock price fell about 2.5% on Friday, briefly falling below $30, reaching its lowest level since December 2014, with an after-hours decline of up to 10%, which later narrowed to within 4%.