German Covid vaccine developer BioNTech lagged second-quarter estimates and reiterated disappointing full-year guidance, leading BNTX stock to dive Monday.
During the June quarter, BioNTech earned 6.45 euros per share. That translates to about $6.56, according to FactSet. On a year-over-year basis, earnings declined 40%. They also missed forecasts for $7.20. Sales also tumbled about 40% to almost 3.2 billion euros, or roughly $3.25 billion. They lagged expectations for $3.95 billion.
The company remained upbeat, however. Chief Financial Officer Jens Holstein noted BioNTech and its partner, Pfizer are working on an updated Covid booster shot to target subvariants of omicron and the original virus. The company has two different omicron-blocking vaccines in development.
"With our initiatives around variant-adapted Covid-19 vaccine candidates, we expect an uptake in demand in our key markets in the fourth quarter of 2022," he said in a written statement.
BNTX Stock: Guidance Disappoints
On today's stock market, BNTX stock crumbled 7.5% and closed at 169.30.
BioNTech reiterated its guidance for 13 billion to 17 billion euros in full-year Covid vaccine sales. That translates to about $13.3 billion to $17.3 billion. The midpoint of BioNTech's outlook came in short of expectations for $16.78 billion in sales.
Third Bridge lead health care analyst Lee Brown says the Covid vaccine booster market could be worth a total $7 billion annually in the U.S. alone. Pfizer/BioNTech will likely compete closely with Moderna and Novavax.
"The forthcoming launches of the updated Covid-19 vaccines are important, especially for the higher-risk cohorts of the population, given the significantly waning (effectiveness) of the original vaccines against the current prevalent strains of the virus," he said in a report to clients.
To that point, BioNTech just signed a deal with the U.S. government to provide another 105 million doses of the Covid vaccine with an option for another 195 million doses.
Still, the move Monday sent BNTX stock down for the first time in five trading days.
Follow Allison Gatlin on Twitter at @IBD_AGatlin.
