What happened
Shares of vaccine maker BioNTech (BNTX 0.90%) were down 2.8% early Monday afternoon after falling as much as 6.4% earlier in the day. The decline came after the biotech company reported fourth-quarter and full-year earnings before the markets opened on Monday. The stock is down more than 16% so far this year.
So what
The company reported that revenue in 2022 slipped 8% to 17.3 billion euros (roughly $18.67 billion). Annual earnings per share (EPS) also dropped a bit, from 39.63 euros ($42.76) to 37.77 euros ($40.77). In the quarter, the company reported EPS of 9.26 euros ($9.99), compared to 12.18 euros ($13.14) in the same period last year.
More importantly, the stock was driven down by the company's guidance, which said it expected revenue from Comirnaty, its COVID-19 vaccine, to fall to 5 billion euros (or $5.4 billion) in 2023.
Now what
In the long run, BioNTech may still be a good deal. It is trading at less than three times earnings, and it has an advanced oncology pipeline that has 20 programs in 24 clinical trials. This includes five in phase 2 trials, led by BNT113, a messenger RNA-based immunotherapy in two phase 2 trials. Thanks to its Comirnaty sales, it has 13.9 billion euros in cash ($15 billion), enough to fund its clinical trials for years.
It also has six programs to fight infectious diseases in 10 trials, led by a combination COVID-19-flu vaccine, which received fast-track designation from the Food and Drug Administration. The company is taking advantage of its lowered share price to buy back $500 million worth of stock. It also said it plans to spend about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) on research and development this year. In the short term, however, it has only one product, Comirnaty, that it developed with Pfizer, and it is expecting a big decline in sales this year.
