Is there a doctor in the house? Pfizer reports critically low income and revenues in financial results

Written by

Written on Jan 30, 2024

Reading time 2 minutes

Pfizer investors got a nasty shock today, when the company reported their 2023 figures.
The pharmaceutical giant announced that income and EPS had plummeted more than ninety percent in 2023.
In addition, revenues were also down over forty percent.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer on January 30th reported its financial results for Q4 and the full year of 2023.

The company reported disappointing results, to say the least, including $58.5 billion in revenues for 2023 and $14.24 billion in revenues in Q4, down 42 percent and 41 percent from 2022 year-on-year.

Paxlovid and Comirnaty

A lot of this seemed to be due to acquisitions Paxlovid and Comirnaty, as the company said in its earnings announcement that:

Expected Decline in Comirnaty and Paxlovid Revenues drove a 41 percent operational decrease in YoY revenues
Excluding contributions from Comirnaty and Paxlovid, revenues grew seven percent operationally, driven by a combination of new product and indication launches and in-line product growth

The company’s income plummeted 93 percent in 2023, from $31,37 billion in 2022 to just $2.11 billion for the full year 2023, and a loss of $3.369 million in Q4 last year.

In addition, EPS was down a sickly 93 percent to weigh in at just $0.37 for the whole year compared to $5.47 for 2022.

Post-Covid syndrome

All of this appeared to reflect a company struggling to recapture the highs of its pandemic-era billions, as well as facing present-day market headwinds.

According to the company, Pfizer achieved moderately better success where only non-COVID products were concerned, with CFO David Denton saying in the results that:

We are pleased with the strong eight percent operational revenue growth of Pfizer’s non-COVID products in the fourth quarter of 2023, achieving our full-year 2023 non-COVID operational revenue growth target of six to eight percent. In addition, we are on track to deliver at least $4.0 billion in annual net cost savings by the end of 2024 from our cost realignment program. We are prepared to execute our commercial strategy to drive continued growth from our newly launched and acquired products, and to deliver on our targeted cost savings that we expect will expand our operating margins in 2024 and beyond.”