December 29, 2015
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Now that the Pfizer-Allergan merger is mostly a done-deal, analysts are taking a closer look at Pfizer ’s year-end financials.
Although it’s clear that Pfizer was thirsting for a tax-inversion deal, the company was also facing a number of patent expirations, including Lipitor and Celebrex, which were hammering the company’s profitability. However, over the last three quarters, the company has shown growth despite currency fluctuations, divestments, and acquisitions.
According to The Motley Fool, much of that growth was due to “a few key drugs.” Although all eyes have tended to focus on the company’s February launch of Ibrance for metastatic breast cancer, that isn’t the company’s top drug seller.
In this year’s third quarter, Ibrance sold $230 million. It’s expected to hit blockbuster status—$1 billion in sales or more—in 2016. Not exactly pocket change.
Surprisingly, Pfizer’s top-selling drug this year was Prevnar 13, a vaccine for pneumococcal bacteria that causes a type of pneumonia. Pfizer’s Prevnar family of vaccines raked in a whopping $1.58 billion in worldwide sales in the third quarter of 2015 alone, an increase of 44 percent from the previous year. In the U.S., those sales increased 77 percent in that quarter, driving the overall growth—sales increased only 10 percent worldwide otherwise.
This sales pop was significantly influenced by a September 2014 recommendation by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), part of the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The ACIP recommended that all adults 65 years of age or older receive the Prevnar 13 vaccines in series with Pneumovax 23, which is marketed by Merck & Co. . There are about 45 million people eligible for the vaccines, and Pfizer believes it is reaching 25 to 30 percent of that market.
Another hot Pfizer drug has been Lyrica, to treat nerve pain. Its patent ends in a couple years, but the demand has been high enough that Pfizer has been able to increase its price.
And the company has some very promising drugs in its pipeline. One, being developed with Merck KgaA , is Avelumab for cancer. It is specifically being developed to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and other solid tumors. It is currently being evaluated in a Phase III trial for NSCLC.
Avelumab is an immuno-oncology therapy, the hottest area in cancer therapy, as witnessed by Merck & Co.’s Keytruda. In the third quarter, Keytruda sales hit $159 million. If the drug is expanded into advanced NSCLC in October, it too might hit blockbuster status of $1 billion as early as 2016.
Pfizer is currently trading for $32.67. The stock has had some volatility recently, but overall is fairly stable. The low was Sept. 28, trading for $30.82, and high was Aug. 3, trading for $36.15.
The Motley Fool’s Sean Williams indicates that buying Pfizer stock might depend on what your goals are and how quickly you want a return. “If you’re looking for higher-growth investment opportunities or anything where you’ll potentially need your money over the next one to three years, I don’t believe Pfizer is the stock for you. … However, if you’re an income-seeking investor and targeting low volatility, then Pfizer might be perfect for you.”
