Pfizer (PFE) shares moved lower Monday after the drugmaker posted disappointing late-stage data from a trial of its Covid antiviral treatment, Paxlovid, late Friday ahead of its first quarter earnings later this week.
Pfizer said a trial involving 3,000 adults with 'household contacts' that were infected by Covid failed to meet its primary endpoint of reducing the overall risk of infection to the person taking the drug. Patients that took a five-day course of Paxloivd were 32% less likely to be infected, Pfizer said, while those taking a ten-day course were 37% less likely.
However, neither tally was 'statistically significant", the company said.
“We designed the clinical development program for Paxlovid to be comprehensive and ambitious with the aim of being able to help combat Covid-19 in a very broad population of patients,” said CEO Albert Bourla “While we are disappointed in the outcome of this particular study, these results do not impact the strong efficacy and safety data we’ve observed in our earlier trial for the treatment of Covid-19 patients at high risk of developing severe illness, and we are pleased to see the growing global use of Paxlovid in that population.”
Pfizer shares were marked 2% lower in early trading Monday to change hands at $48.11 each, a move that extends the stock's year-to-date decline to around 15.1%.
Pfizer forecast earlier this year that sales of its recently-approved Covid pill Paxlovid would come in at $22 billion, with Comirnaty vaccine sales expected to top $32 billion.
Late last year, Pfizer said it will sell around 10 million of its Paxlovid treatment, which won Emergency Use Approval (EUA) by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration on December 22, to the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
At $530 per tablet, the cost is around 25% cheaper than the $700 price agreed with Merck & Co. MRK in October to buy 1.7 million doses its 'molnupiravir' treatment of "mild-to-moderate Covid in adults who are at risk for progressing to severe forms of disease, or hospitalization.
Pfizer will publish its first quarter earnings prior to the start of trading on Tuesday, with analysts looking for a bottom line of $1.47 per share on revenues of just under $24 billion.
Looking into the 2022 financial year Pfizer said in February that its sees adjusted earnings in the region of $6.35 to $6.65 per share, compared to the Refinitiv forecast of $6.69, and revenues of between $98 billion and $102 billion.
