(AOF) – Pfizer has raised its annual sales forecast for its Covid-19 vaccine from $2 billion to $34 billion on the back of demand for its new bivalent vaccines. The American pharmaceutical giant was up 3% ahead of the stock market. If the demand for coronavirus vaccines drops in some countries, the deployment of anti-Covid reminders is underway in the United States and Europe.
“Our Covid-19 franchises will remain multi-billion dollar revenue generators for the foreseeable future,” said Albert Bourla, the group’s chief executive.
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An inevitable race for new blockbusters
The patent for Merck’s star product, the cancer drug Keytruda, which accounts for more than 35% of its sales, expires in 2028. Despite the loss, since 2019, of the patents for its three star products (Avastin, Herceptine, Rituxan) Roche was able to renew its portfolio by bringing new molecules to market. However, the discovery and launch of new drugs are increasingly expensive. AstraZeneca spends about $6 billion a year on R&D in a pharmaceutical industry where the life of a patent only lasts ten to fifteen years. This leads laboratories to withdraw from certain activities. Thus J&J, Pfizer, GSK and, no doubt, Novartis soon prefer to refocus on specialty drugs and abandon any ancillary activity.