(Reuters) -Pfizer on Wednesday forecast 2024 revenue and profit below Wall Street expectations, sending its shares down 7% in premarket trading even as it raised cost-cut target by $500 million.
Sales of Paxlovid and the vaccine Pfizer (NYSE:) makes with German partner BioNTech (NASDAQ:) had boosted the company’s revenue over the last two years.
But a drop in annual vaccination rates and demand for the treatments in 2023 have forced the company to launch a program in October to cut jobs and expenses to save at least $4 billion a year.
The company, which employs nearly 83,000 employees globally, in November cut 500 jobs at its Sandwich, Kent site in the UK.
Pfizer also expects to complete the $43 billion acquisition of cancer drugmaker Seagen on Thursday. Its products are expected to add $3.1 billion to revenue next year, with another $8 billion coming from sales of Pfizer’s vaccine comirnaty and treatment Paxlovid for COVID-19.
The U.S. drugmaker expects its annual revenue to be in the range of $58.5 billion to $61.5 billion compared with analysts’ average estimate of $63.17 billion, according to LSEG data.
The company also forecast adjusted profit in the range of $2.05 to $2.25 per share, lower than analysts’ expectation of $3.16.