What happened
Shares of vaccine maker BioNTech (BNTX -1.57%) 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 3 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 on the market, Comirnaty, that it developed with Pfizer, and it is expecting a big decline in sales this year.
