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A vaccine buoys an economy
Covid shots—on track to becoming the top-selling pharmaceutical product in history—are in such high demand that their sales are beginning to have a macroeconomic impact.
BioNTech, the German vaccine partner of Pfizer, is a case in point: Its 2021 estimate of revenue from the shots of 15.9 billion euros ($18.8 billion) could contribute about half a percentage point to Germany’s gross domestic product growth, says Sebastian Dullien, a professor of international economics at HTW Berlin.
Unlike Germany’s large automotive companies, Mainz-based BioNTech focuses a large part of its production domestically, Dullien says. Its largest plant, located in the west German city of Marburg, can make 1 billion doses a year.
“There are rare cases where single companies have a macroeconomic relevance,” Dullien said in a Twitter post after the company released its quarterly report. “This is quite extraordinary for a startup.”
Germany’s economy is expected to expand by 3.7% this year, according to Bundesbank forecasts, and Dullien’s estimate suggests that BioNTech will account for roughly an eighth of that.
While some of the company’s revenue might include inputs from abroad, BioNTech’s profit-sharing agreement with vaccine partner Pfizer counts toward German GDP. Some production steps are also done at a Pfizer factory in Belgium and by other manufacturing partners elsewhere in Europe, but Dullien argues this is unlikely to significantly diminish the impact on German GDP as production costs are low compared to revenues.
BioNTech and Pfizer have signed contracts to deliver some 2.2 billion doses of the two-shot vaccine this year and more than 1 billion doses in 2022 and beyond. Pfizer said last month it may generate $33.5 billion in sales this year, which is split between the partners, and BioNTech also gets some revenue from direct sales.—Carolynn Look
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A Vaccine Buoys an Economy - Bloomberg
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