With a better-than-expected first quarter in the books, Pfizer—continuing to grapple with the post-pandemic overhang from its COVID-19 franchise—is sticking with the sales forecast it set earlier this year, raising questions from at least one analyst about whether it could have lifted its outlook.
Buoyed by notable sales beats from blood thinner Eliquis, pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar and breast cancer medicine Ibrance, among others, Pfizer’s overall revenue in the first quarter grew 2% year over year on an operational basis to $14.5 billion. When excluding sales of its COVID-19 products Comirnaty and Paxlovid, the growth rate (PDF) was 7% for the period on an operational basis, the company said Tuesday.
Pfizer’s “strong” performance across the board helped the company deliver first-quarter revenue about $641 million above consensus forecasts, according to a May 5 note from analysts at Citi. Pfizer is also demonstrating that its commercial portfolio can flourish beyond the historically mammoth sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral, the Citi team said, noting that the company’s crop of recent launches and acquired products—including Padcev, Nurtec and Lorbrena—grew 22% operationally for the quarter.
Nevertheless, Pfizer is sticking with the guidance it issued earlier in 2026, projecting full-year sales between $59.5 billion and $62.5 billion.
That prompted a question on the company’s earnings call from J.P. Morgan analyst Chris Schott, who wondered whether the strong first-quarter performance might influence Pfizer’s thinking on its earnings trajectory for the rest of the year.
“I have a philosophy of not really adjusting in Q1,” Pfizer CFO Dave Denton said of the company’s maintained guidance for 2026, noting that the timing sensitivity of the company’s COVID-19 sales in the fall and winter makes early adjustments tricky.
“If you look at our COVID franchise, it will always be back-half-weighted because of the seasonality, and so we, if anything, have derisked delivery on that without raising guidance,” Denton said.
“Absent that, we probably would be raising guidance,” the CFO emphasized.
Taking a closer look at the numbers, Padcev saw sales tick up 39% to $591 million, which Pfizer chalked up to market share gains in first-line urothelial cancer, plus new sales momentum from the antibody-drug conjugate’s muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) rollout.
The drug picked up a landmark FDA nod in November in combination with Keytruda, becoming the first and only perioperative treatment regimen for cisplatin-ineligible patients with MIBC.
Blood thinner Eliquis also held up well under pressure in the quarter, delivering 8% growth with sales of $2.2 billion despite price pressures and generic entry in certain markets abroad, Pfizer noted.
Other products charting solid trajectories in the quarter were Pfizer’s Nurtec franchise, up 41% to $353 million; Lorbrena, which grew 32% in the first quarter; and Xeljanz, whose sales increased 34% over the three-month span.
As for the company’s COVID products, vaccine Comirnaty saw sales continue to plunge, with a 59% decline in the first quarter bringing revenue to $232 million—about $205 million below consensus, according to Citi.
For its part, Paxlovid, Pfizer’s COVID-19 antiviral, saw sales plummet 62% to $186 million—$68 million below consensus—with Pfizer attributing the drop to lower infection rates in the U.S. and abroad, plus smaller government purchases internationally.
Meanwhile, following last year’s key deal for obesity biotech Metsera, analysts were curious about where Pfizer’s M&A appetite stands today.
As it turns out, a recent settlement that sets the timeline for generic competition to the company’s transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM) med Vyndamax in the U.S. has given the company “more confidence in our cash flow delivery over the next several years,” Denton explained.
With that in mind, Pfizer currently has around $7 billion in business development firepower and continues to look at potential deals “constantly,” per the CFO.
Pfizer’s stock briefly dipped Tuesday morning but was roughly flat as of about 11:15 a.m. ET.
