2024-08-06 03:43:21
The years of rich revenues from the corona vaccine are long gone. Biontech is putting all its energy into developing new products and is posting deep red figures in the first half of the year.
On the way to the approval of new products, for example for the treatment of cancer, Biontech had to accept a high three-digit million loss in the second quarter. At 807.8 million euros, the deficit was more than four times as large as in the same period last year, when a loss of 190.4 million was recorded.
In the first half of 2024, the net loss totaled 1.12 billion euros, the Mainz-based company announced. In the same period last year, Biontech was able to make a profit of 311.8 million.
“We are making progress towards our goal of becoming a company with approved drugs against cancer and infectious diseases,” said company boss and co-founder Uğur Şahin. In the second quarter alone, the Mainz-based company said it invested 525.6 million euros in “non-Covid-19-related activities,” primarily in oncology and drugs against infectious diseases – according to the information, this was around 90 percent of all research and development costs.
Biontech is still aiming for its first market approval for a cancer drug in 2026, with annual market approvals in oncology planned from then on. For the full year 2024, the company still expects total sales of 2.5 to 3.1 billion euros after revenues of 128.7 million euros in the second quarter (167.7 million in the same period last year), with the bulk of the revenues expected in the fourth quarter.
Biontech explained the renewed decline in sales in the second quarter with shrinking revenues from Covid-19 vaccines, and demand is becoming increasingly seasonal. Chief Financial Officer Jens Holstein expects that this business has reached its low point for the current financial year.
The Mainz-based company has begun the market launch of an adapted Covid-19 vaccine for the 2024/25 vaccination season. Approvals have already been granted for the EU and Great Britain, and according to Biontech, applications for approval are pending in more than 40 countries worldwide. In the USA, Biontech expects approval by mid-September, as Sahin explained.
Chief Financial Officer Holstein said that Biontech will focus on its long-term growth strategy over the remainder of the 2024 fiscal year, especially the continuation of ongoing clinical trials – these are running on several types of cancer or on combined vaccines such as one against Covid-19 and influenza – as well as the expansion of production capacities, for example for mRNA, at the headquarters in Mainz and in Marburg.