Pfizer Group shares rose 3.14% on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday after the US group raised its forecast for 2022 Covid vaccine sales to $34 billion. This is 2 billion more than the forecasts announced so far. As a result, the group is now targeting between $99.5 billion and $102 billion in total revenue.
This development is explained by the arrival on the American market at the end of August of a version of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine adapted to the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants, which increased sales by 83%. This bivalent vaccine has also been used in Europe, and in particular in France since the beginning of October.
For the next few months, “the rise in prices [devrait compenser] a slowdown in demand outside the United States”, analyzes the Financial Times. Indeed, the pharmaceutical giant announced on October 21 that it was aiming for a sale price of between 110 and 130 dollars (between 112 and 132 euros) per dose of vaccine in the United States in 2023. For the moment, the American administration is paying 30 dollars per dose targeting Omicron BA.4/5. But manufacturers will have more flexibility to raise prices next year when the government purchasing program expires.
“Governments must not sit idly by”
This announcement of a probable increase in prices made associations and certain scientists jump. The organization People’s Vaccine Alliance sees it as “theft”. “Pfizer is shamelessly defrauding the public of ever-increasing sums of money. (…) Governments must not sit idly by while companies like Pfizer hold the world to ransom in the midst of a pandemic,” one of its officials, Julia Kosgei, thundered in a statement.
Pfizer justifies this price increase by an increase in the costs of manufacturing and distributing its vaccine as well as an expected switch from multi-dose vials to single-dose vials, indicates CNN. Without the framework of government contracts, residents could be “faced with difficulties of access” if pharmacies and other suppliers near them do not stock up, analyzes for its part the Kaiser Family Foundation. In addition, those who have no health insurance (neither private nor funded by the US administration) may have to pay for an injection.
The vaccine is not the only product that Pfizer markets in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Its Paxlovid antiviral, intended to limit the risk of severe form, should earn it 22 billion dollars this year. This figure has not changed in the new forecasts.