
BioNTech makes a splash with $10B+ projection for 2021 Covid-19 vaccine sales
BioNTech, Pfizer’s relatively quiet German biotech partner for its Covid-19 vaccine, made noise on Tuesday with its earnings report, projecting about €10 billion ($11.5 billion) in vaccine revenue based on the currently signed supply contracts for about 1.4 billion doses.
The €10 billion projection for the growing company, founded by the husband and wife team of Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, comes almost exactly a year after the company first announced its plans to join up with Pfizer and bring its mRNA-based vaccine to fruition. That projection also dwarfs Pfizer’s original agreement to pay BioNTech $185 million upfront for the vaccine collaboration, even with the potential future milestone payments of up to $563 million.
By comparison, Pfizer has projected about $15 billion in Covid-19 vaccine sales for this year, while Moderna is prepping for about $18 billion in 2021 vaccine sales.
An increased demand in the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine also means BioNTech said it will increase manufacturing capacity from 2 billion doses in 2021 to 2.5 billion doses.
“The increase is driven by the optimization of production processes, the recent initiation of production at BioNTech’s Marburg, Germany facility, regulatory approval for six dose vials, and the expansion of our manufacturing and supplier network,” the company said. The first batches of vaccines from the Marburg site are expected to be delivered in the second half of April.
The company also said it more than quadrupled its annual revenue in 2020 when compared to 2019, noting revenues were estimated to be €482.3 million ($566 million) last year, compared to €108.6 million ($127 million) for 2019.
The influx of new revenue means the company can accelerate its pipeline of cancer drugs, noting that this year it expects at least four data updates from potential cancer drugs, with up to three programs expected to move into randomized Phase II trials and six preclinical programs moving into Phase I trials.
BioNTech’s stock has catapulted from $40 per share at the beginning of 2020 to more than $100 per share today, with about a 6% jump on Tuesday’s financial report. That leaves the company with a $23 billion-plus market cap.
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