Dive Brief:
- Pfizer said Tuesday it is again expanding a multibillion-dollar cost-cutting program that was initiated in 2023 and designed to offset continuing sales losses from its COVID vaccine and antiviral treatments.
- In its latest earnings announcement, Pfizer said the new additions should deliver another $1 billion in net savings through 2029 and help the program eventually cut a total of $6.7 billion in expenses. Those overall savings will include $1.5 billion in manufacturing-related cost-cuts, and “productivity enhancements from technology and simplification efforts across our commercial, R&D and enabling functions,” the company said.
- In the second quarter, Pfizer reported $15 billion in revenue, a 1% increase compared to the same period in 2025. That figure beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations, and Pfizer noted that the revenue for its non-COVID drugs climbed 5%. Company shares rose about 1% in Tuesday trading, though they’re still worth less than half the roughly $60 price they traded at during the pandemic.
Dive Insight:
Comirnaty, the messenger RNA vaccine Pfizer developed with partner BioNTech, was briefly the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest-selling product ever. In 2022, it generated $38 billion as it was rolled out into global immunization programs. Once the pandemic ended, though, people increasingly began forgoing boosters. By 2025, revenue cratered to $4.4 billion.
Pfizer has spent much of the last three years trying to offset those losses. A big part of that effort is a plan to trim spending. Initially announced in 2023, that program once was expected to shave $3.5 billion from Pfizer’s expenses. Pfizer now wants to nearly double that total amid difficulty finding new ways to grow sales.
At a quick glance, Pfizer’s second-quarter report looks optimistic. Sales of multiple top products including Eliquis, Ibrance and Vyndamax all beat Wall Street’s consensus estimates. Pfizer also slightly boosted revenue guidance, forecasting 2026 revenues will be betwen $60.5 billion and $62.5 billion compared a previous range of $59.5 billion to $62.5 billion. It held firm on projections for spending and per-share earnings, too. The latter of which Pfizer now forecasts at $2.80 to $3 per share.
But many of the franchises that have helped Pfizer in the past are in decline. The new earnings report shows that five of its 13 cancer drugs posted lower sales in the second quarter of 2026 than in the same three months in 2025. Among those with slowing sales were Adcetris and Tivdak, two drugs Pfizer acquired in its $43 billion buyout of Seagen.
Recently, another Seagen-developed experimental drug disappointed in clinical testing, forcing Pfizer to take a $3.8 billion impairment charge in the second quarter. That charge was accompanied by a $525 million write-down for sickle cell drug Oxbryta, which Pfizer also acquired in a multibillion-dollar deal but later pulled from the market.
