Read alsoWhy Pfizer plays the Made in France card
surprise success
Driven by sales of its vaccine, which brought in $36.8 billion in 2021, Pfizer saw its revenue jump 95% last year, reaching $81.3 billion. And for 2022, the company is eyeing 100 billion dollars, boosted in particular by hopes for its other anti-Covid weapon, the Paxlovid.
Such success, however, was by no means obvious. When the Covid occurs at the end of 2019, Pfizer is only the third of the four major vaccines in the world, behind GSK and Merck, and tied with Sanofi. Its 5.4 billion euros in sales, the New York laboratory owes them in large part to its serum against pneumococci. But Pfizer has two major trump cards up its sleeve: its partnership with BioNTech, which got down to the development of an anti-Covid vaccine very early on. The German biotech, led by Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, has been working with Pfizer for several years. Second advantage: when BioNTech approached the American company in March 2020, it was headed by a go-getter, ex-boss of the vaccines branch, Albert Bourla.
Aggressive Duo
The German virologist Kathrin Jan-sen, head of vaccines R&D and who knows the two researchers of Turkish origin very well, is also in charge. “Beyond BioNTech, Comirnaty’s success is due to the Bourla-Jansen duo, who were able to put in place a very aggressive strategy in record time”, underlines a former Pfizer researcher. The contract between the partners, “negotiated in three weeks, against between nine and twelve months generally”, specifies BioNTech, attests to this. This is the start of the operation Lightspeed (speed of light).
The deal is clear: to BioNTech the scientific know-how, to Pfizer the burden of expensive clinical trials and production. Profits will be split 50-50. Pfizer then injects 2 billion dollars, and decides to dispense with state aid deemed too restrictive. The sequel is known. The Comirnaty is the first to cross the finish line and receives the green light from the European Union on December 21, 2020.
Despite a little delay in ignition, the huge production plants in Kalamazoo (Michigan) in the United States and Puurs in Belgium are holding up, and the effectiveness of the famous vaccine is undeniable, despite a significant drop in antibodies. after several months. Despite this martingale, the CEO of Pfizer remains intractable: while the production cost of Comirnaty is estimated at less than 1 euro by Imperial College London, the latter is, for example, sold for 17.20 euros per dose. in the USA. Enough to feed criticism of the voracity of Big Pharma.
Prestige regained
King of the sector at the end of the 1990s, driven by the success of Viagra and the acquisition, in 2000, for 90 billion dollars, at the time the second largest industrial operation in history, of Warner-Lambert , Pfizer is reconnecting with its past. Nothing was gained, however, after suffering ten years ago from the “patent cliff”, a phenomenon by which several patents expire at the same time – and which concerned in 2011 the best-selling Lipitor, the anti-cholesterol from Pfizer. “The company has also suffered from internal R&D in decline, observes Sacha Pouget, associate director of Kalliste Bio-tech Advisors. But then, Pfizer was able to take the turn of oncology, which is currently the most profitable pharmaceutical industry.”
The laboratory notably got its hands in August 2021 on the Canadian biotech Trillium Therapeutics, specializing in blood cancer. Of the 100 molecules currently in clinical development, the largest share (32) comes from oncology. Besides, Pfizer also intends to accelerate in messenger RNA, and has been testing a flu vaccine developed by BioNTech since September.
Finally, the thorniest issue for the new world leader will be to manage the nest egg on which he is sitting. Its astronomical cash flow rose from $154 billion in 2020 to $204 billion in 2021, and analysts expect $264 billion in 2022.
High value targets
Pfizer, which failed to buy Astra-Zeneca in 2014 and abandoned the $160 billion “merger of the century” with Allergan in 2016, will it be caught up in its old demons?
“The company certainly has a culture of XXL acquisitions, but Bourla said that its strategy would be to buy biotechs with high added value”, answers our ex-executive of Sanofi. Another hypothesis, put forward by the business community: to split the group, with on one side the family jewels (messenger RNA, oncology) and on the other the less profitable activities (internal medicine treatments). Reinvigorated by the Covid, Pfizer is spoiled for choice.
Pfizer’s sales jumped 95% in 2021, to $81.3 billion. The laboratory hopes for 100 billion this year, betting on Paxlovid.
Paxlovid’s Golden Promises
This is Pfizer’s second trigger in the fight against Covid-19. Available in French pharmacies, since February 4, for immunocompromised people, Paxlovid is the first treatment that can be prescribed by general practitioners – it must be taken for five days after a positive test. Pfizer hopes for the jackpot, because after 72 million dollars in sales in 2021, it plans to sell 22 billion dollars this year. 89% effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths, according to the first clinical trials, the American pill has the advantage of being administered orally, and not intravenously, unlike its competitors produced by GSK or AstraZeneca. Paxlovid is also tinted with the colors of made in France, the active ingredient being manufactured in Mourenx (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) by Novasep, beneficiary of part of the investment of 520 million euros in France announced by Pfizer mi -January..
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