Pfizer shares sink on weak 2024 revenue, profit forecasts

Pfizer on Wednesday forecast 2024 revenue and profit below Wall Street expectations, sending its shares down 7% in premarket trading even as it raised cost-cut target by $500 million.

Sales of Paxlovid and the vaccine Pfizer makes with German partner BioNTech had boosted the company’s revenue over the last two years.

But a drop in annual vaccination rates and demand for the treatments in 2023 have forced the company to launch a program in October to cut jobs and expenses to save at least $4 billion a year.

The company, which employs nearly 83,000 employees globally, in November cut 500 jobs at its Sandwich, Kent site in the UK.

Pfizer also expects to complete the $43 billion acquisition of cancer drugmaker Seagen on Thursday. Its products are expected to add $3.1 billion to revenue next year, with another $8 billion coming from sales of Pfizer’s vaccine comirnaty and treatment Paxlovid for Covid-19.

The U.S. drugmaker expects its annual revenue to be in the range of $58.5 billion to $61.5 billion compared with analysts’ average estimate of $63.17 billion, according to LSEG data.

The company also forecast adjusted profit in the range of $2.05 to $2.25 per share, lower than analysts’ expectation of $3.16.