If you thought Pfiz­er was rak­ing it in with megablock­buster sales of its BioN­Tech-part­nered Covid-19 vac­cine — last pro­ject­ed at $36 bil­lion for 2021 — think again.

As the phar­ma gi­ant sends off its EUA sub­mis­sion for its an­tivi­ral pill to the FDA, the Wash­ing­ton Post, New York Times and oth­ers are re­port­ing that the US gov­ern­ment is plan­ning a $5 bil­lion con­tract to pur­chase 10 mil­lion cours­es of the treat­ment, dubbed Paxlovid.

Bar­clay’s an­a­lysts crunched the num­bers. Their con­clu­sion: That could mean an­oth­er $15 bil­lion to $25 bil­lion in 2022 rev­enue for Pfiz­er if all goes well.

Oral drugs that pa­tients can take at home soon af­ter they start see­ing symp­toms have been hailed as a ma­jor break­through for the pan­dem­ic. Mer­ck was the first to de­liv­er pos­i­tive Phase III re­sults with mol­nupi­ravir, and Pfiz­er quick­ly fol­lowed by show­ing that Paxlovid cut the risk of Covid-re­lat­ed hos­pi­tal­iza­tion or death by 89% com­pared to place­bo.

Mer­ck has fore­cast about $7 bil­lion in mol­nupi­ravir sales through the end of next year.

The re­port­ed terms of Pfiz­er’s sup­ply deal, Bar­clays an­a­lysts wrote, im­ply greater vol­ume but low­er pric­ing than the con­tracts Mer­ck ne­go­ti­at­ed. Where­as mol­nupi­ravir was sold at about $700 per course, Paxlovid’s price is es­ti­mat­ed at $300 to $500 per course.

Be­sides, they added, “the US gov­ern­ment se­cured vol­umes more than 3x what it has al­ready se­cured for Mer­ck’s mol­nupi­ravir (10mn vs. 3.1mn).”

To get the $15-25 bil­lion num­ber, they made the as­sump­tion that 90% of dos­es are dis­trib­uted.

Both com­pa­nies have pledged to share their patents with gener­ic mak­ers and non­prof­its so that de­vel­op­ing coun­tries can ac­cess them at a much low­er cost.

For a look at all End­points News coro­n­avirus sto­ries, check out our spe­cial news chan­nel.

Following a promise last year to go “big and fast in breast cancer,” Gilead has secured a win for Trodelvy in the most common form.

The drug was approved to treat HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer patients who’ve already received endocrine-based therapy and at least two other systemic therapies for metastatic cancer, Gilead announced on Friday.

Trodelvy won its first indication in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer back in 2020, and has since added urothelial cancer to the list. HR-positive HER2-negative breast cancer accounts for roughly 70% of new breast cancer cases worldwide per year, according to senior VP of oncology clinical development Bill Grossman, and many patients develop resistance to endocrine-based therapies or worsen on chemotherapy.

FDA announced today that doctors and pharmacists can now prescribe Paxlovid to patients without a positive test for Covid-19.

CDER Director Patrizia Cavazzoni reissued Paxlovid’s authorization letter Wednesday, saying it has revised the authorization to “no longer require positive results of direct SARS-CoV-2 viral testing.” The EUA now requires instead that adults and kids 12 years of age and older have a “current diagnosis of mild-to-moderate COVID-19.”

Sanofi expects its RSV antibody jointly developed with AstraZeneca will be available next season, executive VP of vaccines Thomas Triomphe announced on the company’s quarterly call.

Beyfortus, also known as nirsevimab, was approved in the EU back in November and is currently under FDA review with an expected decision coming in the third quarter of this year. The news comes as the FDA plans to hold advisory committee meetings over the next couple months to review RSV vaccines from Pfizer and GSK.

After a whopping $4 billion asset buy from Nimbus Therapeutics, along with a $400 million deal with Hutchmed for a colorectal cancer drug, Takeda executives touted pipeline optimism on its latest earnings call this week.

That’s because the TYK2 inhibitor for psoriasis Takeda is getting from Nimbus, along with the Hutchmed fruquintinib commercialization outside of China, are just two of what it reports are 10 late-stage development programs of promising candidates.