Pfizer reports earnings beat and boosts guidance as Metsera bid-off heats up
Pfizer reported earnings on Tuesday.
Pfizer rose in early trading after it reported earnings results on Tuesday that beat Wall Street estimates as the company is embroiled in the middle of a bid-off for obesity biotech Metsera.
The pharmaceutical giant reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.87, compared to the $0.63 analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. The company also narrowed its full-year adjusted profit per share guidance to between $3.00 and $3.15, from between $2.90 and $3.10, which equates to a mild boost to the expected midpoint.
It also reported $16.6 billion in revenue for the quarter, just above the $16.5 billion the Street was penciling in.
The company is down about 7% since the start of the year amid industry-wide headwinds like tariffs as well as its own struggle to secure its next source of revenue growth.
Meanwhile, Pfizer launched a legal battle this week against Novo Nordisk — its Danish competitor and maker of Ozempic — for seeking to intercept its acquisition bid for Metsera, an obesity biotech working on a next-generation GLP-1 drug.
Metsera said on Monday that both Novo and Pfizer upped their bids for the company, but Novo's was still superior to Pfizer’s.
The spat underscores just how much the weight-loss medication race is heating up. Earlier this year, Pfizer scrapped a GLP-1 pill it was developing after data from clinical trails fell short. Novo, while first to the GLP-1 market, is watching Eli Lilly’s drugs eat its lunch.
