Pfizer Q1 2026 earnings: non-COVID products surge as vaccine, pill sales keep fading
Pfizer's revenue grew 5% as newer drugs offset a steep drop in COVID-19 product sales; the company held its full-year 2026 targets steady.
| Q1 2026 | Reported |
|---|---|
| EPS | $0.47 |
| Revenue | $14.45B |
Figures as reported by the company to the SEC for the quarter ended March 29, 2026. Analyst estimates are not part of a filing, so no comparison to expectations is shown.
Key takeaways
- Total revenue rose 5% from a year earlier, but that headline masks two very different stories inside the business: COVID-19 products kept sliding sharply (Comirnaty down 59% and Paxlovid down 63% on an operational basis), while everything else — the ‘launched and acquired products’ portfolio — grew about 22% operationally, a sign the company’s post-pandemic shift toward newer medicines is gaining traction.
- Reported (GAAP) earnings per share came in at $0.47, down from $0.52 in the same quarter last year, a decline the company tied partly to lower COVID-19 product sales and prior-year items that didn’t repeat.
- Pfizer reaffirmed its full-year 2026 guidance: revenue of $59.5 billion to $62.5 billion and adjusted profit of $2.80 to $3.00 per share, meaning management’s outlook for the rest of the year is unchanged from what it had previously told investors.
- The company still expects COVID-19 product sales to keep shrinking through 2026 — by roughly $1.5 billion for the year, to about $5 billion combined — as vaccination recommendations narrow and fewer people get infected or treated for COVID-19.
- Pfizer is leaning on a multi-year cost-cutting plan to help profitability: it booked about $175 million of manufacturing-related savings in the quarter toward a targeted $700 million for 2026, part of a broader effort to trim expenses as pandemic-era revenue fades.
- CEO Albert Bourla said the company is ‘off to a strong start in 2026,’ pointing to oncology and obesity treatments as areas where he expects Pfizer to lead, with roughly half of the company’s expected 2026 clinical and regulatory milestones coming from its cancer drug pipeline.
- Trailing-twelve-month profitability metrics remain thin relative to Pfizer’s historical norms — operating margin near 6.8% and net margin near 6.8% — reflecting the drag from the steep drop-off in high-margin COVID-19 vaccine and treatment sales versus the pandemic-era peak, even as the company works to offset it with cost cuts and newer product growth.
Q1 2026 in context
| Metric | Mar 2026 | Mar 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $14.5B | $13.7B | +5.4% |
| Net income | $2.7B | $3.0B | -9.4% |
| Free cash flow | $2.2B | $1.8B | +23.0% |
| Diluted EPS | $0.47 | $0.52 | -9.6% |
| Gross margin | 75.4% | 79.3% | -3.8 pts |
| Net margin | 18.6% | 21.6% | -3.0 pts |
Figures for the quarter ended Mar 2026 and the quarter ended Mar 2025, as reported to the SEC.
How the stock took it
Pfizer Inc closed at $26.30 on May 4, 2026, the last session before the report, and at $26.53 on May 6, 2026, the first session after it — +0.9% across the report.
| Earlier report | Close before | Close after | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 4, 2025 | $24.66 | $24.61 | -0.2% |
Closes from the market's daily record. Each figure spans the report date — from the last session that closed before it to the first that closed after — because a company may report before the open or after the close.
Sources: company report · BioSpace · earnings call materials