The biopharma giant provided full-year 2024 guidance on Wednesday that fell below Wall Street’s expectations, as it continues a cost-cutting effort now up to $4 billion in total.
Pictured: Pfizer signage at its facility in Canada/iStock, JHVEPhoto
Pfizer has been under financial pressure and is still on a downward trajectory as the end of the year approaches. The company’s full-year 2024 guidance suggests that revenue next year could fall or come in flat compared to 2023, while it plans an “incremental” $500 million cost reduction, according to an announcement on Wednesday.
Pfizer’s stock dropped around 7% on Wednesday morning before the opening bell and has fallen over 46% since the beginning of the year.
In the company’s year-end guidance on Wednesday, Pfizer said it expects to bring in revenues of around $58.5 billion to $61.5 billion in 2024. According to CNBC, analysts anticipated an average guidance of nearly $63.2 billion in revenues.
Sales of the COVID-19 products Comirnaty and Paxlovid are expected to bring around $8 billion in revenues into Pfizer’s coffers for the year. While Pfizer also projects around $3.1 billion in revenue from its Seagen acquisition.
Pfizer’s $43 billion deal to acquire antibody-drug conjugate maker Seagen cleared all regulatory issues on Tuesday and is expected to close on Thursday.
Excluding the COVID-19 products and Seagen revenues, Pfizer expects full-year 2024 operational revenue growth of 3% to 5%.
“Pfizer’s product portfolio remains strong. In 2024, Comirnaty and Paxlovid are expected to deliver combined revenues of approximately $8 billion, and our remaining portfolio of combined Pfizer and Seagen products is expected to achieve year-over-year operational revenue growth in the range of 8% to 10%,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement.
However, financial pressures have been building for the New York-based company throughout the year. In the third quarter of 2023, Pfizer encountered its first quarterly loss since 2019, with significant drops in the sales of the Comirnaty vaccine and Paxlovid.
The biopharma giant started a major cost-cutting initiative in October 2023, seeking to save around $3.5 billion through 2024, which has now been raised to $4 billion in total so far.
“We expect our cost realignment program to deliver savings of at least $4 billion by the end of 2024, which puts us on a path to potentially regain our pre-pandemic operating margins,” Bourla said in a statement.
Cost-cutting initiatives have included closing several manufacturing facilities and layoffs on the production side of the business in both the U.S. and Europe. Last month, Pfizer announced 500 staff layoffs were coming at a U.K. facility, while another 100 jobs were axed at a production site in Ireland.
Tyler Patchen is a staff writer at BioSpace. You can reach him at tyler.patchen@biospace.com. Follow him on LinkedIn.
