Feb 8, 2022 - Health

A new top-selling medicine: Pfizer's COVID vaccine

Bob Herman

A vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. — The life-saving and lucrative Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Photo: Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Pfizer registered $36.8 billion of sales in 2021 from the COVID-19 vaccine it makes with BioNTech.

Why it matters: This vaccine is now officially the top-selling pharmaceutical product ever in a single year, by a huge margin.

Humira is the next highest, with $20.7 billion reported in 2021 as the next highest in a single year.

What to watch: Pfizer expects the vaccine will generate $32 billion of sales this year, and the company's antiviral COVID pill, called Paxlovid, will create $22 billion of revenue.

Pfizer's stock dropped more than 5% on those forecasts because Wall Street expected even higher revenue numbers.

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A new top-selling medicine: Pfizer's COVID vaccine

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