The Wall Street bets on Pfizer stocks didn’t play out as the drug corporation is having troubles for the first time in 2 years of profits. After having bought back nearly $9 billion of its own shares in 2019, the company has no repurchase plans for 2020.
The price of Pfizer stocks fell 4% down to $38.51 during Q4 2019. During the last year, the company bought back approximately $9 billion in its stocks to foster market growth. However, the largest medicine giant is losing money and wants its Upjohn development to merge with Mylan NV, which is another big drugmaker aiming at new types of medications.
The Upjohn is selling the drugs that lost patent protection, such as Viagra and Lyrica. By the middle of 2020, the company management will finalize the deal with Mylan NV. The Chief Financial Officer Frank D’Amelio noted:
“We will focus instead on increasing the dividend and investing in the business during this period of growth.”
Experts Surprised Drug Giant Is Losing Profits
The company was selling healthcare businesses during the year. This has transformed into partially doing profits. Albert Bourla, serving as CEO Pfizer, said that the company will stop repurchasing its own stocks to avoid using ‘financial engineering’. Then, they are letting the market decide for itself. They halt stock buybacks, to stop diluting the ‘deal-making firepower’ of the venture.
Navin Jacob from UBS points to the rising expenses, as the Q4 2019 was not as good as predicted to many of the world’s largest businesses. He said that the market analysts were surprised to see the company’s bad reports, considering that the drug giant is “very good at cost control”. The sales of a breast cancer cure Ibrance adjusted earnings of 55 cents per the company share. The profits from selling the drug rose by 13 percent, totaling $1,28 billion in a quarter. Refinitiv consensus estimations kept showing approximately $1.35 billion as the target.
Lyrica sales keep going down by 67%, because of the competing drugs and Medical Marijuana legalization. It appears that Lyrica is helping in 22% of the cases, while MJ could deliver anytime (according to the users’ feedback on forums). The Lyrica relief in many different cases ends with much bigger health troubles, including suicidal thoughts. As a result, the company’s total revenue lost 9% in Q4 2019. All is totaling $12,69 billion and setting the negative trend for 2020.