Pharmaceutical companies profits shoot up by 66% from covid vaccine

The international big pharmaceutical companies involved in the vaccine production against covid-19 collectively earned more than 24.5 billion euros in the first half of 2021, driven by the high demand for the drug.

According to data compiled by Efe, the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson (J&J), parent of Janssen, achieved a net profit of 24.5 billion euros in this period, which represents an increase of 66% compared to 2020.

The last to present results on Thursday was Moderna, which earned about 3.4 billion euros as of June, thanks to its vaccine sales, which were just under 5 billion.

The US company, which had lost 203 million euros in the same period of 2020, invoiced 5.3 billion during the first six months, after the sale of 302 million doses.

The pharmaceutical company raised its sales forecasts for this year to 16.9 billion euros and expected to deliver between 800,000 and 1 billion doses, which has demonstrated an efficacy of 93% in the six months after the second injection.

PFIZER AND ASTRAZENECA SOAR

Pfizer earned a net profit of 8.8 billion euros so far in 2021, up 53% year-on-year, while its turnover amounted to €28.2 billion, up 68%.

According to the company itself, some good data are due to the substantial contribution of sales of the vaccine against the coronavirus that it has developed together with the German BioNTech, which has caused it to revise its estimates for the whole year upwards.

According to its account breakdown, Pfizer achieved $6.56 billion in direct sales and joint revenue from the coronavirus vaccine in the second quarter, 23% of its total turnover.

In the case of the English company AstraZeneca, the company has increased its net profit to 1.8 billion euros in the first half of the year, 42% more than in the same period of 2020, after achieving revenues of 13.08 billion euros (23% more).

On this occasion, the contribution of its vaccine against the coronavirus, developed with the University of Oxford, was around 984 million (7.5% of its total turnover), thanks to the delivery of 319 million doses worldwide.

For its part, J&J made a profit of more than 10.5 billion euros between January and June 2021, 32.4% more than in the same period of the previous year.

In addition, the pharmaceutical and multinational consumer products entered 38.5 billion in the first half, 16.9% more.

However, the vaccine from its Belgian subsidiary Janssen gave J&J a revenue of about 139 million, a far cry from the figures recorded by Pfizer, Moderna, or AstraZeneca.