BioNTech (BNTX) is Off to a Great Start in 2021

BioNTech SE (NASDAQ:BNTX) has been around for nearly 13 years now. It was founded by two scientists named Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci with the vision of developing individualized cancer immunotherapy.  The company finally came into the spotlight in 2020 after joining hands with Pfizer to develop a vaccine against Covid-19. The collaboration turned out to be fruitful after their vaccine, called BNT162b2, received emergency use authorization in several countries around the world.

The sale of BNT162b2 substantially improved the company’s financial results. BioNTech recently announced strong earnings and revenue for the first quarter. The company reported a profit of $5.33 per share for the three months ended March 31, crushing analysts’ average estimate of $4.19 per share.

Revenue for the quarter skyrocketed 7995 percent on a year-over-year basis to $2.5 billion, beating the consensus forecast of $2.1 billion. Revenue from the sale of BioNTech came in at $2.1 billion, accounting for nearly 84 percent of the total revenue.

Speaking on the results, CEO Ugur Sahin said in a statement, “BioNTech has continued to execute the delivery of our Covid-19 vaccine globally to more than 90 countries and territories. Through our continued innovation, we are expanding access to new populations and geographies, and addressing emerging variants. We are moving into later stage testing for three of our oncology programs in the near future and plan to launch multiple new products over the next five years. Looking ahead, we will further optimize our technologies and expand our pipeline into additional therapeutic indications, as we meet our ambition to become a global, fully-integrated immunotherapy company.”

Looking forward, BioNTech expects to generate revenue of $15.1 billion from the sale of its Covid-19 vaccine this year. BioNTech stock jumped more than 10 percent following its better-than-expected quarterly report.