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.

Gilead is mounting its counterfeit drug lawsuit, naming two “kingpins” and a complex network of conspirators who allegedly sold imitation bottles of its HIV meds, some of which ended up in US pharmacies.

The pharma giant on Wednesday provided an update on what it called a “large-scale, sophisticated counterfeiting conspiracy,” accusing two new defendants of “leading and orchestrating” a scheme to sell hundreds of millions of dollars in illegitimate drugs posing as meds such as Biktarvy and Descovy.

It was great getting back to a live ESMO conference/webinar in Paris followed by a live pop-up event for the Endpoints 11 in Boston. We’re staying on the road in October with our return for a live/streaming EUBIO22 in London.

Silicon Valley Bank’s Nooman Haque and I are once again jumping back into the thick of it with a slate of virtual and live events on October 12. I’ll get the ball rolling with a virtual fireside chat with Novo Nordisk R&D chief Marcus Schindler, covering their pipeline plans and BD work.

While it is not uncommon for a biotech to go down the route of having the product manufactured by a contract organization, one small biotech is looking to keep its card close to its chest.

Vor Biopharma has started manufacturing operations at an in-house facility at its HQ in Cambridge, MA after beginning construction last summer.

According to the biotech, the facility aims to develop Vor’s hematopoietic stem cells (eHSCs) and CAR-T therapies for patients with blood cancers. The site will initially manufacture a clinical supply of its candidate VCAR33allo to support its IND, which is slated to be submitted in the first half of next year. It also plans to transfer the production of VOR33 to the facility. Vor is getting to work quickly as engineering runs for VCAR33allo has started this week.

Sarepta Therapeutics has filed the data needed for an FDA accelerated approval, which would be the biotech’s fourth if granted by the agency.

The biotech has yet to complete confirmatory trials for those first three conditional nods. The filing for its fourth Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment, disclosed Thursday, is not a surprise. Sarepta said in late-July it would do so after releasing positive results for the Roche-partnered gene therapy.

The US government is all set to buy $10.7 million worth of Siga Technologies’ monkeypox oral antiviral, the company announced Thursday.

Of the total doses, $5.1 million worth of oral antivirals called Tpoxx (tecovirimat) will be delivered this year, with the US Department of Defense having the option of buying the rest at a later point.

The new contract follows an earlier one in which the government had purchased $7.4 million worth of Tpoxx from the company.