BioNTech in Mainz closes Q1 2022 at €6.37 billion - the strongest quarter in the company's history. Sales are significantly higher than in Q4 2021 and even three times higher than a year ago, in Q1 2021 - when production and global delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine was just getting started. The company increased operating profit to €4.75 billion and net income to €3.7 billion, and subsequently reaffirmed its full-year guidance: BioNTech expected revenues from its COVID vaccine Comirnaty to reach €13 billion to €17 billion in 2022, assuming a significant slowdown in subsequent quarters.

The second mRNA vaccine producer, Moderna, had already presented its quarterly figures last week, reporting sales of around $6.1 billion and a profit of $3.7 billion. Over the year, Moderna expects to generate about $21 billion in sales from the COVID-19 vaccine.

But there are also sales records outside of vaccines: as a therapeutics developer, the American-Swiss antibody company Vir/HumabsBiomed entered the corona business a little later, but has even more tremendous leaps in sales to report: the figures for the most recent quarter show that Vir Biotechnology closed with total sales of $1.23 billion. This represents a more than 600-fold increase in the company's revenue compared to the same quarter last year, when it generated $2.0 million.

From Pfizer's miracle pill Paxlovid, however, one hears sobering news: sales are very restrained and the effect as corona protection is significantly weaker in the open field. Instead of the once communicated 95%, it is more likely to be around 40%, which should not exactly boost sales further.