Pfizer is investing up to $15 billion to revamp its portfolio of obesity drugs after failing to complete trials for a drug for obesity. Under pressure from falling sales and criticism from major investors, the company has set a target of cutting costs by $7.2 billion by 2027.

Pfizer will make two or three deals worth $15 billion this year to add new drugs to its lineup after the failure of clinical trials of a weight-loss drug. This was announced by the head of the pharmaceutical company Albert Burla in an interview with Bloomberg.

“We're going to proceed very cautiously,” he said. - We don't want to fully invest in one product - it's too risky.”

The manufacturer is going through a difficult period: demand for COVID-19 vaccines and drugs continues to fall, and patent expirations threaten to collapse sales by more than $15 billion by the end of this decade, the agency points out. According to its Q1 financial report, revenue for the first three months of this year totaled $13.7 billion. That's down 8% from the same period in 2024. Sales of the anti-viral Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir + ritonavir) fell 76% to $491 million. Meanwhile, the business is not unprofitable - net profit reached almost USD 3 bln.

Despite multi-billion dollar acquisitions in recent years, Pfizer has not yet produced any new bestsellers, and the list of drugs undergoing trials (most of them at the initial stage) does not impress investors. The company acquired Seagen for $43 billion in 2023, Biohaven Pharmaceuticals for $11.6 billion in 2022, Arena Pharmaceuticals for $6.7 billion, and Global Blood Therapeutics for $5.4 billion.

The pharma giant has previously struggled to break into the fast-growing obesity market, which is dominated by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. However, this month, studies of oral danuglipron had to be scrapped in phase III due to liver damage in one of the participants. The company has alternative developments, but they will take years to complete.

Analysts now speculate that Pfizer will buy a biotech startup focused on creating weight-loss drugs. Among the possible candidates are Viking Therapeutics or Structure Therapeutics.

In addition, the manufacturer intends to reduce costs even more. Previously, it was envisioned to reduce costs by $6 billion by the end of 2027, now this amount has increased by another $1.2 billion. At the same time, about $500 million is planned to be invested in development and research.

 

Source: Bloomberg