Years after the onset of the pandemic, the massive financial windfall that came from Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral therapy has largely dried up, while pipeline setbacks have complicated the company's path forward. The drugmaker is now at a critical inflection point.
Pfizer has “dropped out of the top 10 in innovation," Jacqui Poot, president of strategic consulting and analytics at Idea Pharma, told PharmaVoice about the organization’s recently released index that ranks companies by their achievements in R&D and commercialization.
The company is "stalling at the moment … having difficulty navigating [the] post-COVID era," Poot said.
At the same time, Pfizer is staring down major patent cliffs, as key patent protections on several billion-dollar drugs are set to expire this year and next.
These exclusivity losses are expected to create a $1.5 billion headwind for the company, which could swell to $4.5 billion in 2027, Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla said in January.
To get ahead of this, Pfizer has been revamping its pipeline strategy, pouring more than $80 billion into acquisitions and licensing deals to bolster its entire portfolio and offset the expected revenue loss, Bourla said.
Pfizer's recently launched and acquired assets are projected to bring in around $20 billion in revenue by 2030, but could its newly restructured and diversified obesity pipeline help the drugmaker climb back to the top?
What’s dragging Pfizer down
Pfizer's historic wave of blockbuster patent expirations includes five products that generated around $21.9 billion in sales last year, accounting for roughly one-third of Pfizer's total revenue — and the company is already taking the hit.
The main patents for its autoimmune therapy Xeljanz and its pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar 13, part of the Prevnar franchise, have already expired. In November, Pfizer's top-earning drug, the blood thinner Eliquis, will lose its key patent protection. Last year, Eliquis alone brought in nearly $8 billion in revenue, making up 13% of the company's total sales.
Pfizer's top two cancer drugs, Ibrance and Xtandi, are also set to lose patent exclusivity in 2027. Since the peak of the pandemic, sales of Pfizer's COVID-19 products have continued to slump as a lower disease incidence has reduced the need for vaccines and antiviral treatments.
The federal rollback of vaccine recommendations in the U.S., led by HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr., is also having an impact.
Sales of the COVID-19 shot Comirnaty and oral antiviral Paxlovid plummeted 78% from nearly $57 billion in 2022 to about $6.8 billion in 2025.
That major loss has created an overall drag on Pfizer’s revenue picture, which hit $62.6 billion in 2025. When including Comirnaty and Paxlovid, revenue was down 2% from the year prior. But without those products in the mix, the drugmaker's portfolio grew by 6% operationally.
What could right the ship?
Pfizer has turned to dealmaking to rebuild its pipeline after the company failed to successfully advance its own two in-house obesity assets. The drugmaker has since committed to investing up to almost $13 billion to beef up its obesity portfolio.
The pharma titan has already completed several deals, winning a fierce $10 billion bidding war in November against Novo Nordisk to acquire Metsera. Metsera’s slate of at least eight potential new drugs promises Pfizer a foothold in a global weight-loss market that analysts project will eclipse $100 billion by 2030.
The acquisition added four clinical-stage programs to Pfizer's pipeline, including one oral option. If successfully approved and commercialized, these drugs could help generate billions in sales alone.
After acquiring Metsera, Pfizer then went overseas to pick up a second oral asset. The large pharma inked a licensing deal worth up to $2.1 billion with Chinese drugmaker YaoPharma for the global rights to develop and commercialize its early-stage GLP-1 pill.
Shortly after, Pfizer agreed to pay as much as $495 million for part ownership of Sciwind Biosciences' injectable cAMP-biased GLP-1 receptor agonist, Severwin. Formerly called ecnoglutide, Severwin is approved for diabetes and obesity in China.
Pfizer is looking to maximize the value of these deals and become a leader in the next wave of obesity therapies, with a portfolio that includes "several promising peptides with the potential for best-in-class efficacy, competitive tolerability, convenient dosing and delivery, combinability and scalability," a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Pfizer’s major moves in weight loss
Pfizer's newly souped-up obesity drug pipeline gives the company multiple shots on goal for receiving its first FDA nod in 2028. The pharma giant's diverse roster features several injectable and oral obesity candidates that target a range of GLP-1 receptors, GIPR agonists and antagonists and amylin analogs.
The company said it’s launching more than 20 clinical studies across its obesity portfolio this year alone, including at least 10 late-stage trials of its lead candidate berobenatide, two of which are already underway.
Pfizer's GLP-1 hopeful berobenatide is being developed as a monthly injection and is also being tested in combination with Metsera's monthly amylin analog and GIPR agonist to trigger higher efficacy weight loss.
In its 28-week mid-stage Vesper-3 study, berobenatide showed up to 12.3% weight loss after patients switched to monthly dosing without reaching a plateau, "suggesting continued weight loss is expected as the study continues through week 64," Pfizer said.
To build on these findings, phase 3 studies will include a higher monthly maintenance dose.
"While these results are encouraging, it’s important to remember that they’re just one piece of the larger puzzle we've carefully crafted, with each element fitting together to unlock our broader strategy," Pfizer said.
The pharma giant is also working on a maintenance dose that can be injected once every three months, Bourla recently told CNBC. Less frequent dosing could improve drug adherence and be more appealing to patients than weekly shots or daily pills.
The drugmaker is also testing YaoPharma's oral option in combination with the large pharma's GIPR antagonist and other assets in its large pipeline.
Like other GLP-1 therapies, YaoPharma's asset could potentially be used to treat other conditions besides obesity, including diabetes and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, which could help diversify their revenue streams.
