Drugmakers pull back after Covid boom, planning to cut costs as they prepare for industry’s next era

Bio­phar­ma com­pa­nies whose Covid-19 drugs and vac­cines cre­at­ed an un­prece­dent­ed flood of new rev­enue and prof­its are now pulling back on the huge in­vest­ments they made dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, in­clud­ing some plans to dra­mat­i­cal­ly cut costs and re­duce head­count.

The planned or on­go­ing changes from com­pa­nies in­clud­ing Pfiz­er, BioN­Tech, Catal­ent and No­vavax in­clude job cuts, re­duc­tions in R&D spend­ing and strat­e­gy changes. Pfiz­er, for ex­am­ple, has said that even as it plans to add $25 bil­lion in new sales from ac­qui­si­tions by 2030, it’s still con­sid­er­ing an “en­ter­prise-wide cost im­prove­ment” pro­gram de­pend­ing on this fall’s Covid sales.

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