Pfizer Oncology Drugs Drive Sales in Q2: Will the Trend Continue?

Globe and Mail

10 hours ago

Pfizer PFE is one of the largest and most successful drugmakers in oncology. It boasts a strong portfolio of approved cancer medicines as well as a robust pipeline of cancer candidates with a focus on multiple modalities, including small molecules, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and immuno-oncology biologics.
The addition of Seagen in 2023 also strengthened its position in oncology by adding four ADCs — Adcetris, Padcev, Tukysa and Tivdak. The acquired Seagen products contributed meaningfully to Pfizer's revenues in 2024 and in the first half of 2025. Seagen also has some next-generation ADC candidates in its pipeline.
Oncology sales comprise more than 25% of Pfizer's total revenues. Its oncology revenues grew 9% in the first half of 2025, driven by drugs like Xtandi, Lorbrena, the Braftovi-Mektovi combination and Padcev, which made up for declining sales of drugs like Ibrance.
Xtandi recorded alliance revenues of $566 million in the quarter, up 14% year over year. Lorbrena sales rose 48% to $251 million. Braftovi/Mektovi revenues were $182 million, up 23% year over year. New drug, Elrexfio, generated sales of $85 million in the second quarter. Ibrance revenues declined 8% year over year to $1.05 billion due to continued competitive pressure across markets. Among the ADCs added from the acquisition of Seagen, Adcetris sales were $255 million in the second quarter, which declined 9% year over year due to competitive pressure in the United States. Padcev rose 38% to $542 million, driven by strong demand trends.
Pfizer has ventured into the oncology biosimilars space and markets six biosimilars for cancer. Revenues from oncology biosimilars were $353 million in the second quarter, up 27% year over year.
Pfizer also advanced its oncology clinical pipeline with several candidates entering late-stage development, like sasanlimab, vepdegestrant and sigvotatug vedotin. By 2030, it expects to have eight or more blockbuster oncology medicines in its portfolio.
In July, it closed a global ex-China in-licensing agreement with China's 3SBio for exclusive rights to the latter's dual PD-1 and VEGF inhibitor, which will strengthen its oncology pipeline.
Pfizer is also working on expanding the labels of approved oncology drugs like Padcev, Adcetris and Elrexfio, among others.
With all the above developments, Pfizer's future in cancer treatment looks promising. Continued growth of Pfizer's diversified portfolio of oncology drugs should support top-line growth in the second half of 2025.
Competition in the Oncology Space
Other large players in the oncology space are AstraZeneca AZN, Merck MRK and Bristol-Myers BMY.
For AstraZeneca, oncology sales now comprise around 43% of total revenues. Sales in its oncology segment rose 16% in the first half of 2025. AstraZeneca's strong oncology performance was driven by medicines such as Tagrisso, Lynparza, Imfinzi, Calquence and Enhertu (in partnership with Daiichi Sankyo).
Merck's key oncology medicines are PD-L1 inhibitor, Keytruda and PARP inhibitor, Lynparza, which it markets in partnership with AstraZeneca. Keytruda, approved for several types of cancer, alone accounts for around 50% of Merck's pharmaceutical sales. Keytruda's sales rose 6.6% to $15.1 billion in the first half of 2025.
Bristol-Myers' key cancer drug is PD-L1 inhibitor, Opdivo, which accounts for around 20% of its total revenues. Opdivo's sales rose 9% to $4.82 billion in the first half of 2025.
PFE's Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates
Pfizer's stock has declined 0.4% so far this year compared with a decrease of 1.2% for the industry.
From a valuation standpoint, Pfizer appears attractive relative to the industry and is trading below its 5-year mean. Going by the price/earnings ratio, the company's shares currently trade at 8.08 forward earnings, lower than 14.45 for the industry and the stock's 5-year mean of 10.78.
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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 earnings has risen from $3.05 per share to $3.12 per share, while that for 2026 has gone up from $3.08 to $3.09 per share over the past 30 days.
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Pfizer has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).