By Michael Erman
New York (Reuters)-Health experts see signs of a much smaller wave of American COVID-19 cases this winter than in previous years, which could exert extra pressure on Pfizer (PFE) to find growth of his non-known treatments.
Pfizer, which reports financial results on Tuesday, is under pressure from investors who are looking for an improved performance of his other products, such as his medicines for cancer, to compensate for COVID sales that have crashed from their pandemic peak of almost $ 60 billion in income.
Investors still have to be convinced. The share acts approximately $ 26.50 – less than half of its highlights from the Pandemic era.
Covid products are still a profit driver for the company. Pfizer predicts by Wall Street to report $ 5.3 billion in 2024 sales of his Covid Antiviral treatment Paxlovid. They are expected to fall by around 25% in 2025.
The turnover of Paxlovid and the COVID vaccine is expected to be 16% of the total turnover of Pfizer, estimated at around $ 63 billion for 2024, fell to 13% of the turnover of 2025, according to estimates of the analysts.
“They still had a pretty important contribution from both vaccine and Paxlovid in guidance. So I think that is probably a risk for that,” says Jeff Jonas, portfolio manager for Gabelli Funds, who from September around $ 50 million in Pfizer shares Held from September.
Analysts expect a profit of 47 cents per share at $ 17.4 billion in income in the fourth quarter, according to LSEG data, both improvements from a year ago.
BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman said that Pfizer’s prediction is already conservative, and with COVID products that are no longer seen as a core activities, the reaction of investors to lower volumes could be damped.
Chief Executive Albert Bourla, when he provided business predictions in December, said that Pfizer still expected a new wave of infections at the end of 2024 and in 2025, as it saw in previous years.
But the Covid golf this winter has hardly been materialized, according to the latest data.
American information about visiting the emergency department with the diagnosed COVID-19 to 21 January suggest that cases fell considerably in the first three weeks of the year.
According to that data, cases peaked around January 1, when about 1.4% of the patient visits of the Emergency Department resulted in a COVID-19 diagnosis, much less than a year ago, when the diagnostic rate was 3.4%.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have not updated its COVID data since the administration of President Donald Trump ordered health officials to pause public communication.