Pfizer Plans To Profit From COVID For Years To Come

Pfizer has already profited billions of dollars from the COVID-19 pandemic, and it plans to do so for years to come via annual vaccinations and sales of its antiviral pill Paxlovid.

The company doubled its revenue from 2020 to 2021, bringing in more than $81 billion, and also gained a large foothold in the American regulatory process, according to Kaiser Health News. CEO Albert Bourla and other top executives have said they plan to continue taking advantage of the COVID-19 market for the foreseeable future.

“Hopefully, we could be giving it annually and maybe for some groups that are high-risk more often,” Bourla told investors earlier this year, referring to COVID-19 booster shots and vaccines tailored to specific variants. “Then you have the treatment [Paxlovid] that will, let’s say, resolve the issues of those that are getting the disease.”

Some patients have experienced issues with “rebound” infections with Paxlovid, cases where they begin experiencing stronger symptoms again after completing their series of the antiviral pill. That won’t stop Pfizer from selling millions more doses though, executives said.

“People are going to get out there,” the president of Pfizer Biopharmaceuticals Group, Angela Hwang, said in May. “We know with all of that, infections are going to increase, and that’s the role that Paxlovid can play.”

The Biden administration has agreed to purchase 105 million doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, the US Department of Health announced. The purchase includes both adult and child vaccines and is likely to be delivered early fall.https://t.co/uq9D9JBVxA

— CNN (@CNN) June 30, 2022