Pfizer stock sees worst year of 21st century after COVID vaccine market plummets



Pfizer's market cap was cut nearly in half in 2023, marking the worst year for the company's stock this century, a recent report explained.

Down 44% at the closing of the markets days before New Year's Eve, 2023, shares also hit a 10-year low with the company's stocks plummeting to $26 from $51 per share, where it was at the start of the year.

As the Washington Examiner noted, the year-end $162 billion market cap is less than half what it was two years prior during the COVID-19 vaccine gold rush.

"Pfizer was doubling and tripling down on their COVID-19 vaccines and the Paxlovid pills for treatment," remarked Josh Brown, CEO of financial management company Ritholtz Wealth.

However, in 2023, vaccine usage took a steady nosedive despite once being a the most formidable driver for the company. Although the usage drop was expected, a small bump toward the end of 2022 showed some promise for the vaccine manufacturer.

The number of new dosages dropped to just under 12,000 in a day when the CDC stopped tracking the figure on May 11, 2023, the day President Biden officially called an end to the COVID emergency.

Compare that to two years earlier, when more than 2,000,000 doses were administered in a single day.

While 56 million Americans received the bivalent COVID-19 booster, this clearly wasn't enough to move the needle for Pfizer's stock. That's why the company nearly quadrupled the price of the COVID-19 vaccine in October 2023 from $19.50 per dose all the way up to around $120, Fee reported.

Barchart noted that in order to keep profits coming in, part of Pfizer's plan has included acquiring new drug companies. Specifically, the company spent $43 billion in its acquisition of Seagen Inc., a company focused on cancer treatments.

Despite the obvious drop in profit for Pfizer in 2023, the company has been able to raise dividends and is expected to garner between $58.5-$61.5 billion in 2024. Additionally, the company is hoping to add $25 billion in sales by the often-targeted year of 2030.

For reference, competitor and fellow pharmaceutical giant Eli Lily was able to garner massive gains in 2023 and pole vaulted its shares by more than 60%.

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CDC says just 2% of Americans received new COVID vaccine. Pfizer undergoes $3.5 billion in cost-cutting measures as sales for COVID-19 products plummet.



Only 2% of Americans have gotten the updated COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The updated COVID vaccine created to provide more protection against current coronavirus variants circulating was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Sept. 11, 2023.

"The approval of Comirnaty (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) (2023-2024 Formula) was granted to BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH. The EUA amendment for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (2023-2024 Formula) was issued to Pfizer Inc," the FDA stated. "The approval of Spikevax (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) (2023-2024 Formula) was granted to ModernaTX Inc. and the EUA amendment for the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine (2023-2024 Formula) was issued to ModernaTX Inc."

The next day, the CDC recommended that every U.S. citizen over the age of six months get the updated COVID vaccine manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech.

President Joe Biden added the same day, "I encourage all Americans to stay up-to-date on their vaccines."

The CDC urged, "If you have not received a COVID-19 vaccine in the past 2 months, get an updated COVID-19 vaccine to protect yourself this fall and winter."

Despite the push by the government to get the new shots in the arms of Americans, just about 2% of U.S. citizens have opted to get the new booster vaccine.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services revealed that 7 million Americans received the latest updated COVID vaccine – roughly 2% of the United States population.

CNN reported, "In comparison, when last year’s bivalent COVID-19 booster was available, more than 18 million people had received a dose by October 12, 2022, about six weeks after the CDC signed off on it, according to CDC data. By May, about 56.5 million people had received that booster, representing about 17% of the U.S. population."

The vaccination rates for the booster shots are severely lagging compared to previous iterations of the mRNA vaccine aimed at targeting COVID.

According to CDC data, over 92% of U.S. adults received the first COVID vaccine that rolled out in December 2020. Those who got the second mRNA vaccine dropped to 79%, and a mere 20% of Americans received the bivalent COVID booster.

An HHS spokesperson said, "COVID-19 vaccine distribution, which has shifted to the private market, is a lot different than it was last year when the government was distributing them. The Biden-Harris Administration, through HHS, has been working directly with manufacturers and distributors to ensure that the vaccines are getting to pharmacies, hospitals, clinics, pediatricians, and other vaccination sites, including long-term care facilities."

Despite the switch to private distribution, the HHS boasted that pharmacies and other locations have already received nearly 14 million vaccines, and that "91% of Americans 12 years and older can access the vaccine within 5 miles of where they live."

Most Americans can receive a free COVID-19 vaccine through health insurance, local health centers, and pharmacies participating in the CDC's Bridge Access Program.

On Friday, Pfizer announced that the pharmaceutical behemoth would have to cut $3.5 billion in costs due to rapidly deteriorating profits from COVID-19 products.

"Pfizer also announced that it now anticipates full-year 2023 revenues to be in the range of $58.0 to $61.0 billion, versus its previous guidance range of $67.0 to $70.0 billion solely due to its COVID products," the statement read. "Full-year 2023 revenues for Paxlovid and Comirnaty are expected to be approximately $12.5 billion, a decline of $9.0 billion versus original expectations."

Pfizer revealed that has already launched a "multi-year, enterprise-wide cost realignment program that will realign its costs with its longer-term revenue expectations." Pfizer said the cost-cutting measures will save the pharmaceutical company at least $3.5 billion – $1 billion in 2023 and $2.5 billion in 2024.

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More Americans died of COVID this year than all of 2020



More Americans have died from COVID-19 so far this year than from the virus in all of 2020, according to updated data from Johns Hopkins University. As of Wednesday, there have been 353,000 COVID deaths since Jan. 1, 2021. There were 352,000 COVID-19 deaths reported in 2020.

The United States has the most COVID-19 deaths in the world, with more than 727,000 fatalities since the first coronavirus case was announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Jan. 21, 2020. Brazil has nearly 600,000 COVID-19 deaths and India has almost 450,000 coronavirus deaths, according to Worldometers. The United States is 19th in the world in COVID deaths per million (2,182).

The U.S. has been averaging more than 1,700 coronavirus deaths per day in the past seven days.

Last month, the COVID-19 pandemic became the deadliest disease event in American history — surpassing the death toll of the Spanish flu with an estimated 675,000 deaths during the 1918 pandemic.

A total of 186.4 million Americans are fully vaccinated, and over 6 million received a booster shot. According to the CDC, 65.7% of the U.S. population over the age of 12 is fully vaccinated. Of Americans age 65 or older, 83.7% are fully vaccinated. As of Oct. 2, the seven-day moving average of U.S. vaccinations is 834,161. The highest vaccination weekly average was nearly 3.5 million in April 2021.

On Jan. 31, 2020, then-President Donald Trump declared the coronavirus outbreak to be a public health emergency in the U.S., ordering a quarantine for those who had recently traveled to certain parts of China.

On March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. On March 13, 2020, Trump declared a national emergency concerning the coronavirus outbreak as a public health risk. On March 16, 2020, the Trump administration rolled out the "15 days to slow the spread" campaign.

In April 2020, the United States became the first country in the world to record more than 2,000 COVID-19 deaths in a single day and overtook Italy as the global leader in total coronavirus deaths.

In the days and weeks before the 2020 presidential election, then-candidate Joe Biden promised Americans that he would "shut down the virus." As the Daily Wire pointed out, Biden made several declarations on the campaign trail about how he would get the COVID-19 pandemic "under control," and used coronavirus deaths to attack Trump.

Biden declared about the coronavirus:

  • Oct. 5, 2020: "More than 200,000 Americans have died. 50,000 Americans are getting the virus every day. 1,000 a day are dying. This is a national emergency. The President should take responsibility."
  • Oct. 15, 2020: "We're eight months into this pandemic, and Donald Trump still doesn't have a plan to get this virus under control. I do."
  • Oct. 27, 2020: "If you give me the honor of serving as your president, I won't waste any time getting this virus under control and building our nation back better."
  • Nov. 1, 2020: "More than 230,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 — and Donald Trump has given up on trying to get the virus under control. He may have quit on you, but I promise I never will."

According to a Quinnipiac poll released this week, Biden has an approval rating of less than 40% on the issues of taxes, the economy, job as commander in chief of the U.S. military, and foreign policy. It gets worse for Biden when it comes to immigration and the situation at the Mexican border — where the president has a lowly approval rating of 25% and 23%, respectively. However, Biden's highest approval rating on issues is his response to the coronavirus — which 48% of Americans approve.