Vaccine maker BioNTech reported on its business performance on Monday. Compared to the record year of 2021, the numbers are down significantly. With vaccination readiness waning and a perceived return to pre-pandemic times, a drop in sales and profits of more than 40% each compared to the same period last year is evident, but also understandable.

The new vaccines, adapted to the Omikron variant of the coronavirus, gave management the confidence to raise its full-year revenue guidance, which also boosted the stock price. Chief Financial Officer Jens Holstein spoke of a "strong performance in the third quarter." Some 300 million doses of the bivalent vaccines adapted to Omikron BA.1 and Omikron BA.4/BA.5 were billed from early September to mid-October 2022, prompting the company to raise its revenue forecast for the COVID-19 vaccine for the current fiscal year to the upper end of the original range. Instead of the previously stated €13 to 17bn, the company is now targeting €16 to 17bn.

Overall, the company, along with its partner Pfizer, expects to bill up to 2.1 billion Corona vaccine doses this year, with some ordered doses likely to be delivered as late as 2023. The company expects its COVID-19 vaccine portfolio to remain a long-term and sustainable business.

However, investors are looking beyond Corona and want to know what other products BioNTech can bring to the market in the future. Accordingly, the Mainz-based company regularly points to opportunities in future revenue generators. "We want to use the knowledge gained in developing vaccines adapted to Omikron and transfer what we have learned to other disease areas as well as product candidates," said company CEO and co-founder Ugur Sahin. "We continue to expand our COVID-19 as well as vaccine portfolio in infectious diseases and extend our oncology pipeline."

Accordingly, in the area of cancer, a total of 19 product candidates in 24 ongoing clinical trials are on the agenda. News from up to ten clinical oncology trials is expected in the coming year. BioNTtech is not short of cash: the Main-based company has an impressively high liquidity of €13.4bn in cash and cash equivalents, as well as outstanding trade receivables of €7.3bn as of September 30, 2022.