Pfizer Raised Its Outlook. Its Revenue Still Didn't Grow.
Pfizer hiked its full-year guidance and called the quarter strong, but the top line still barely moved. A 32% jump in new drugs was swallowed by the COVID unwind and a soft Prevnar.
Pfizer characterized its third quarter as strong and raised its full-year revenue guidance by $1.5 billion at the midpoint. The quarter itself did not grow. Total revenue was $16,583 million, down $71 million from $16,654 million a year earlier, with the decline split between a $57 million operational decrease and a $15 million foreign-exchange headwind.
Adjusted diluted EPS was unchanged at $0.87, but reported diluted EPS slipped to $0.56 from $0.62, and reported net income fell 8% to $3,242 million from $3,541 million. The gap between a flat quarter and a raised outlook is the whole story. A narrow group of newer and acquired medicines is growing fast, and those gains are being fully absorbed by the unwind of the COVID franchise and a soft Prevnar stretch.
A fast-growing cohort, clear in the details
Excluding Comirnaty and Paxlovid, revenue grew 7% operationally, and the launched and acquired product group rose 32% operationally. The individual lines show where that momentum sits. Eliquis led with a $513 million increase, up 25% operationally. Padcev rose $255 million, up 55%. The Vyndaqel family added $193 million, up 12%, Nurtec ODT and Vydura added $135 million, up 33%, and Lorbrena added $114 million, up 43%, all on an operational basis.
The growth is concentrated, not broad. It comes from a handful of launch-stage and recently acquired brands, which is both the source of the optimism and the reason the gains have not yet shown up in the headline number. That asymmetry is why a quarter can read as strong on the products that matter and still print a flat top line.
The unwind is still the bigger number
Set against that cohort, the drag is larger. Paxlovid fell $771 million, down 63% operationally, and Comirnaty fell $339 million, down 29%. The Prevnar franchise declined $180 million, or 10% operationally, a soft stretch for one of Pfizer's core vaccine businesses. Taken together, the two pandemic products and a weaker Prevnar more than erase the growth coming from the new cohort. A one-time $650 million acquired in-process research and development charge tied to the Innovent Biologics collaboration also weighed on the reported quarter, dragging earnings down by roughly $0.10 per share.
Guidance up, with the bar still below last year
Management raised the full-year revenue range to $62.0 billion to $64.0 billion from $60.5 billion to $62.5 billion, and narrowed adjusted diluted EPS guidance to $2.95 to $3.05 from $2.80 to $3.00. Even after the raise, the low end of the range sits below the $62.6 billion of revenue Pfizer reported in 2025, a year that was itself down $1.0 billion, or 2%, from 2024. At its new midpoint of $63.0 billion, the range still only modestly clears that 2025 baseline, so the raise is about confidence in the new product base rather than a return to growth.
Where Pfizer is putting its cash tells the same story. Through the first nine months it directed $8.3 billion to internal research and development and roughly $850 million to business development, most of it the Innovent deal, while paying $7.3 billion in dividends, at $1.29 per share, with no share repurchases in 2026 and $3.3 billion of authorization left unused. The company also named Cecile Guegan chief financial officer and executive vice president.
Eliquis, Padcev and the rest of the launched and acquired portfolio are growing fast, and the guidance raise signals rising confidence in that cohort. But those franchises are not yet large enough to move the top line on their own, and the COVID and Prevnar drag keeps absorbing the gains as it annualizes. Pfizer's turnaround is real in a handful of franchises. It has not yet reached the revenue line.
