BioNTech’s performance fell more than expected after four consecutive quarters of revenue of more than 5 billion euros ($5.1 billion) as demand for the new crown vaccine Comirnaty, which it cooperated with Pfizer, fell.
On Monday (August 8, 2022), BioNTech reported revenue of €3.2 billion ($3.3 billion) for the second quarter of 2022. That’s down 40 percent compared to the same period last year and nearly 50 percent compared to the company’s first-quarter revenue of 6.4 billion euros.
The result was significantly below Wall Street’s second-quarter revenue forecast of 3.96 billion euros. After the news came out, BioNTech’s stock price fell by more than 8% at one point, and the US stock market closed down 7.54%.
“The development of the COVID-19 pandemic has been and will continue to be dynamic, which has led to rescheduling of orders, which has resulted in quarter-to-quarter revenue volatility,” Jens Holstein, BioNTech’s chief financial officer, said on the conference call.
BioNTech said most of the decline could be attributed to delays in the delivery of the Covid-19 vaccine to the EU. In May 2022, BionTech and Pfizer said they would delay deliveries from June to August beyond September.
As for the U.S. market, Ryan Richardson, chief strategy officer at BioNTech, said that the fourth quarter of 2022 will see a significant increase in orders for new crown vaccines.
Despite the poor Q2 performance, BioNTech has not adjusted its forecast for the new crown vaccine Comirnaty for the full year of 2022, and still expects sales to reach 13 billion to 17 billion euros. The company expects sales to rise later this year with the fall campaign and the approval of the company’s vaccine against the coronavirus.
BioNTech CEO UğurŞahin said in a phone call that Biontech has already started producing a vaccine against the new coronavirus. This month, the company expects to begin clinical trials of a vaccine against the Omicron BA 4/5 variant, with the hope that it will be approved for marketing in October 2022.
Contrary to declining sales, BioNTech said it was gaining market share. In January of this year, the new crown vaccine Comirnaty accounted for 52% of the global market, and the current figure is 63%. During the same period, the market share of the new crown vaccine Comirnaty in developed markets rose from 59% to 68%.
In the first half of 2022, BioNTech achieved €9.6 billion ($9.8 billion) in revenue and €5.4 billion ($5.5 billion) in net profit. Notably, BioNTech’s operating costs rose due to the write-off of 400 million euros ($408 million) of stockpiled Covid-19 vaccines.
“It’s an exceptional situation that we have to accept in the second quarter,” said Jens Holstein. “It’s going to remain a topic, and we’ll adjust our view based on how the COVID-19 situation develops.”
BioNTech isn’t the only company that has had to write off its stockpiles of Covid-19 vaccines. Moderna last week disclosed a $499 million cost of unused doses of the new crown vaccine amid a slump in global demand for the new crown vaccine.
