Category: Covid-19

UPMC will begin requiring all employees, patients and visitors to wear face masks beginning Dec. 20, which is next Wednesday.

UPMC is seeing an increase in cases of respiratory viruses, including COVID, influenza and RSV, UPMC said Thursday in a written statement.

The requirement applies to all UPMC facilities including hospitals, outpatient facilities and medical offices.

It puts UPMC among a growing number of health systems that have announced masking requirements since the start of fall, when flu and other respiratory illnesses become more prevalent.

As of late November, at least 28 health systems around the country had announced mask requirements, according to Beckers Hospital Review, which covers the healthcare industry. They included Reading Hospital and Mount Nittany Medical Center in Pennsylvania, and the nationally prominent Cleveland Clinic.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, health systems imposed far-ranging masking requirements, keeping them in place until this past May, when the federal COVID-19 emergency ended.

Many, including UPMC, continued to require masks in areas and facilities that care for people who had weakened immune systems or were otherwise highly vulnerable to infections.

In early fall, PennLive contacted central Pennsylvania healthcare systems regarding the possibility of future universal masking requirements, with most saying they were tracking the level of illnesses and would make future masking decisions based on that.

Pennsylvania is presently seeing a steep climb in RVS cases, with flu cases and COVID-19 hospitalizations also on the rise, according to the latest tracking by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Contrary to widespread belief, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesnt impose national mask mandates. Rather, it makes recommendations, and is presently telling hospitals to consider masking requirements when local spread of respiratory infections becomes high. Federal facilities are required to follow CDC recommendations.

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UPMC to begin requiring face masks due to rising RSV, flu, COVID cases - PennLive

The Covid-19 inquirys evidence sessions are draining my faith in its value. We were promised a thorough review, shedding light on how the government made key decisions that affected our health, freedoms and economy. At its best, this rigorous evidence collection would be buttressed by examining the outcomes, then derive transferable lessons for better decision making in future civil emergencies. Instead, sessions are getting bogged down in tedious procedural detail and wrangling over text messages and responsibilities.

This week, Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, was questioned following earlier evidence that Angela McLean, now the UKs chief scientist, had called him Dr Death for prioritising the economy over saving lives. Under interrogation, Sunak at one point cited a controversial June 2020 study from Imperial and Manchester

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The Covid inquiry is turning into an expensive blame game - The Times

KANSAS CITY, Mo. Two weeks after the Thanksgiving holiday and as Kansas Citians gear up for December holidays, data show the area is navigating an uptick in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

On Monday, Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at the University of Kansas Health System, said the number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized increased from 19 last week to 33 in the current week.

Hawkinson said family and social gatherings associated with the Thanksgiving holiday could be related to the uptick in hospitalizations.

He also pointed out that although the newest COVID vaccines are effective against new variants, the percentage of the U.S. population who has taken the updated vaccine is below 20 percent.

LINK | Federal government providing free COVID-19 test kits

LINK | Federal government vaccine finder

Data updated Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties in Kansas in the "yellow" category in the rate of hospital admissions. The remainder of the Kansas City area remains in the "green category."

Centers for Disease Control and Prevenion

The most recent update of data in the Missouri Sewershed Project, which monitors viral loads in wastewater treatment plants across the state, shows an increase at facilities across the entire state, including several in the KSHB 41 viewing area.

KSHB

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COVID-19 in Kansas City: Where do we stand during holiday season - KSHB 41 Kansas City News

The Kingston General Hospital says a surge of emergency department inpatients, including a day that had a near record 580 admissions, has the hospital struggling to keep up as the respiratory virus season peaks across the province.

A thread of social media posts by the Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC), which operates the general hospital, said they are 'bursting at the seams' with the increase in ER admissions and are beginning to open 'non-traditional spaces' to deal with the influx.

"We continue to see patients with COVID-19 as infection rates hold steady across our region. Were averaging about 15-20 COVID inpatients per-day, some in the ICU. Meanwhile, weve now hit peak RSV season and flu cases are beginning to rise in the area," KHSC said on X.

"Meanwhile, our Emergency Department (ED) is also seeing high volumes of patients. Despite our best efforts, some patients are seeing longer wait times in the ED for less urgent issues. We know it is frustrating, but we have to treat the sickest people first."

An emailed statement by KHSC says wait times for an initial assessment remain around average at 3.1 hours, but recognize that patients with less urgent conditions and needs are experiencing longer wait times.

Jason Hann, the vice president of patient care and the chief nurse for KHSC told CTV Morning Live on Wednesday that they are putting 'surge plans' in place.

"We're anticipating for about a 120 per cent occupancy rate across the Kingston Health Science Centre and that's for both our pediatric and our adult population," Hann said.

A large gym at the General Hospital is being prepared as an impatient unit in case the hospital would need to transfer people from the emergency department during the holidays.

The centre said this is occurring amid a worldwide shortage of healthcare workers and the hospital is often short-staffed. They are working to recruit more staff and are making progress, but qualified individuals are "hard to find."

"A number of the patients we are admitting each day are children. We are adjusting many of our inpatient areas to make more room for the rising numbers of pediatric patients who are coming to us for help both from our region, and from other areas in the province," KHSC's statement on X said.

The centre is reminding people in the community to get vaccinated, wear a mask and stay home if you don't feel well.

"We all hate to miss those special holiday events when were under the weather, but staying home in your PJs isnt nearly as bad as sharing a virus with a vulnerable family member or friend," the centre said.

Meanwhile, health officials across the province are warning that an increase in COVID-19 and respiratory infections are causing higher than average wait times across the country.

The Monfort Hospital in the east-end of Ottawa reported wait times of up to 20 hours for a full assessment by a physician (it does not state the wait for an initial assessment).

The Ottawa Hospital and the Queensway-Carleton Hospital also said they are experiencing higher than average patient volumes.

The Kingston General Hospital does not list current wait times online. The latest statistics by Health Quality Ontario, which monitored wait times from across the province in October, found that patients waited an average of 3.1 hours to get an initial assessment by a physician.

Patients are triaged upon arrival and then given an initial visit with a doctor before receiving a full assessment.

The provincial average wait time for an initial assessment was 2.1 hours in October.

With files from CTV Morning Live Ottawa

See more here:

Kingston General Hospital 'bursting at the seams' with COVID-19 and respiratory illness patients - CTV News Ottawa

The world may be out of the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, but humans still share the globe with countless pathogens. Here are some of the ways viruses shaped 2023. Olivia Taussig-Rees for NPR hide caption

The world may be out of the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, but humans still share the globe with countless pathogens. Here are some of the ways viruses shaped 2023.

Yes, the pandemic state of emergency is over. But that doesn't mean that SARS-CoV-2 and other threatening viruses have vanished. Our viral coverage this year included a series on "Hidden Viruses" and a surprising theory about the workings of long COVID that was the most popular post of the year for Goats and Soda with over 1 million views. Here are our most read stories of the year with a viral theme.

Long COVID brain fog may originate in a surprising place, say scientists

Spillovers of a virus from animals to humans may not be as rare as scientists used to think. Here are some of the possible human cases documented since November 2021 Oliver Uberti for NPR hide caption

Scientists studying the causes of long COVID symptoms are proposing a surprising pathway through the gut. Their research weaves together several prominent lines of evidence on what might be driving the condition with its stubborn neurological symptoms such as brain fog, memory loss and fatigue. Published October 24, 2023.

Another Nipah outbreak in India: What do we know about this virus and how to stop it?

Nipah virus, known to spread from bats to human, has broken out in the state of Kerala. Here's what we know about the current cases and the ongoing efforts to quash this potentially fatal disease. Published September 15, 2023.

9 diseases that keep epidemiologists up at night

The World Health Organization keeps a list of viruses and bacteria with pandemic potential to guide scientists, governments and organizations as they invest energy and funds to study and stop the pathogens most likely to cause the greatest devastation to humans. We take a closer look at the 9 diseases on the current list. Published January 29, 2023.

How do pandemics begin? There's a new theory and a new strategy to thwart them

Animals carry millions of pathogens, so it's a daunting task to find the one with the greatest potential to spark a pandemic. Now scientists are rethinking the way they hunt for that next new virus. One point is that viral "spillover" from animals to people may be much more common than thought. Published February 15, 2023.

A new flu is spilling over from cows to people in the U.S. How worried should we be?

Pigs and goats likely catch it too. It's been found in humans' noses in the American Southwest and in the air at airports and at chicken farms in Malaysia. Published March 29, 2023.

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From a surprising long COVID theory to a new cow flu: Our 5 top 'viral' posts in 2023 - NPR

We are lowering our fair value estimate for Pfizer PFE to $42 from $47, largely based on the companys lower-than-expected 2024 guidance. Following the close of the Seagen acquisition, Pfizers guidance included COVID-19 product guidance of $8 billion, which was $5 billion lower than our expectation. Management also acknowledged the firm would be unlikely to hit its previous guidance of 6% growth rate for 2020-25 (excluding COVID-19 product sales). Despite the falling outlook, Pfizer reiterated support for the dividend, which we believe is secure and will likely support the stock valuation.

The lower COVID-19 product guidance is the key driver for our lowered fair value estimate. We continue to expect a long-term tail for COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty and COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid, but we are cutting our projections based on Pfizers guidance and the trend of lost market share to Moderna thats been seen over the past few months. While there is a potential upside to our COVID-19 product sales projections, as Pfizer management may be reacting a bit to missed overly optimistic 2023 COVID-19 sales guidance, we still see the stock as undervalued with the lowered COVID-19 sales projections.

The cost-cutting plans Pfizer set out earlier in the year to adapt to the receding COVID-19 pandemic look on track, and they should help improve margins in 2024 and 2025. The company will likely cut $4 billion in operating costs by the end of 2024. These cuts should fall to the bottom line rather than be redeployed to other initiatives. The ability to significantly cut costs and adapt to scale helps increase returns and reinforce the firms moat.

The Seagen acquisition is largely closing in line with our expectations. Seagens $3.1 billion sales guidance for 2024 is largely similar to our expectations. However, the $0.40 earnings hit expected in 2024 from the deal is slightly worse than our expectations.

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The author or authors do not own shares in any securities mentioned in this article. Find out about Morningstars editorial policies.

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Pfizer: Cutting Valuation on Lower-Than-Expected 2024 Guidance and Weak COVID-19 Sales Outlook - Morningstar

If it seems like everyone is sick right now, its not just all in your head. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over a dozen U.S. states are experiencing higher-than-usual rates of infections this winter. Of course, COVID-19 is on the rise again, yet another indicator that the pandemic isn't truly over. Recent CDC data reports COVID hospitalizations are up 17% and deaths are up 25% from last week. But respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases are also elevated," in addition to pneumonia and flu cases. There's a lot going around right now, making a lot of people wonder, is this normal?

Similar to the urban myth with children, which is that more kids are getting sick more frequently post-pandemic, a similar belief is circulating that more people are getting more sick in post-pandemic winters. In July 2023 the CDC estimated 77.5% of the U.S. population had antibodies from at least one COVID-19 infection, meaning only 1 in 4 had yet to get the infection.

As Salon has previously reported, severe cases of COVID can trigger a hyperinflammatory response called a "cytokine storm" so intense that it seems to exhaust the T cells and decrease their number. More recently, there has been evidence to suggest this can affect the immune system fighting future infections from both COVID-19 and other diseases as well.

Previously, experts were seeing the consequences of measures that the country took to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Social distancing, masking, school closures not only worked for the coronavirus, but they also helped prevent people from other respiratory viruses such as the flu. Indeed, flu numbers hit a record low in the 2020-2021 season. The number of children in pediatric intensive care units for bronchiolitis and pneumonia also plummeted between April and June 2020. Viruses seemingly came back with vengeance. But is it possible that COVID-19 has left us more vulnerable to other illnesses and more COVID-19 infections?

Viruses like the flu and RSV are starting to spread earlier than in pre-pandemic winters, hence the perceived increase in prevalence.

Having COVID is a risk factor for RSV and respiratory illness, Dr. Rajendram Rajnarayanan, of the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Arkansas, told Salon, pointing to a study published last October in the journal Family Medicine and Community Health. The study found that prior COVID infections can make children five and under more vulnerable to RSV.

But Rajanarayanan said we have yet to pin down what the exact mechanism is behind this relationship. We need to invest some more money to study what's going on.

He emphasized this is just one study involving children. However, separate studies on adults have found that having COVID-19 can be a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes. A previous COVID-19 infection put people over the age of 50 at an increased risk for herpes. COVID-19 can also trigger an episode of high blood pressure.

These are comorbid conditions for having other conditions, Rajnarayanan said. And in a way, it sets you up for failure for the next season.

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In the 2010s, leading up to the pandemic, flu hospitalizations varied each year between 12,000 to 710,000 people. Taking a closer look, flu and pneumonia deaths in the winter of 2022-2023 were higher than in winter 2019-2020, right as the coronavirus took off. This year, according to data from early December, the CDC estimates that there have been at least 26,000 hospitalizations, and 1,600 deaths from flu so far this season.

Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious disease at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told Salon hes seeing an uptick in influenza, COVID and RSV hospitalizations locally, in addition to common cold viruses swirling around. But its hard to say if post-pandemic what we are seeing is more people getting sick. Instead, he theorized, whats happening is that viruses like the flu and RSV are starting to spread earlier than in pre-pandemic winters, hence the perceived increase in prevalence.

What happened last year, and to a degree this year, is that both influenza and RSV started early, Schaffner said. And some of them may have to do with coming out of COVID as the viruses have new opportunities to spread.

When a person catches the flu it can weaken the immune system even further, making it more difficult for the body to fight off other infections or illnesses.

Schaffner said he doesnt think that when a healthy person gets COVID-19, that automatically primes or impairs the immune system so that people are more prone to catch another respiratory virus. However, he pointed out that for people with long COVID, they seem to be having a chronic inflammatory response and an altered immune system. This could make them more vulnerable to other respiratory illnesses, he said.

But for the average person, those who recover from COVID, there seems to be no alteration in their immune system, he said. They still respond to other infections and other vaccines in a normal way COVID doesnt seem to predispose you to more viral infections.

Instead, the issue is that there are a lot of viruses that are going around simultaneously, and this could be wreaking havoc on peoples immune systems as theyre having to work harder to fight off multiple viruses spreading around the country.

Dr. T. Ryan Gregory, an evolutionary and genome biologist at the University of Guelph in Canada, told Salon concurrent infections, like having the flu and COVID-19, are worse for a persons immune system than just having one infection.

A recent COVID infection might provide temporary immunity to the next COVID reinfection, he added. But as with many other viruses, it could make people more susceptible to secondary infections for a while.

Despite the myth that the immune system becomes weak if its not exposed to pathogens, suggesting that its good for a persons immune system to be periodically exposed to viruses, experts have said thats not the case. Immune systems are far more complex. For example, when a person catches the flu it can weaken the immune system even further, making it more difficult for the body to fight off other infections or illnesses.

At minimum, adding a third virus [COVID-19] along with flu and RSV increases the chances of a coinfection, which makes things worse, Gregory said. It can also increase the severity of infections with other viruses in people who have recently recovered from one of the others.

The good news is that there are vaccines to protect against all three viruses circulating COVID-19, influenza, and RSV for those over the age of 60.

Our vaccines have been underutilized this season, Schaffner said. It is not too late to be vaccinated but do not delay in order to be protected through December and into the New Year.

Read the rest here:

Respiratory viruses are on the rise. Did COVID-19 make us more vulnerable to other illnesses? - Salon

PrecisionLifes Dr Sayoni Das, a computational biologist who leads the research and development of bioinformatics pipelines that generate biological insights from PrecisionLifes core technology and support drug discovery programmes, details a new study. Using combinatorial analysis, genetic variants associated with long COVID have been identified and, furthermore, it has been found that TLR4 antagonists may be a potential candidate for repurposing long COVID treatment.

There is an extensive array of symptoms associated with long COVID, with the most common being fatigue and post-exertional malaise, cognitive dysfunction, mood disturbances and respiratory problems. This is likely indicative of the heterogeneous nature of the disorder, and it is this complexity and diversity of clinical presentation and effects across multiple organ systems, that has made efforts to identify genetic risk factors using traditional genomic analysis approaches extremely challenging.

Although many studies have investigated the genetic risks underlying long COVID, only one genome-wide association study (GWAS) has identified a single risk locus around the lead variant in the FOXP4 gene. However, studies that use combinatorial analytical approaches to identify genetic risk factors in similarly heterogenous populations have demonstrated more success, for example in severe COVID-19 and ME/CFS.

Combinatorial analytics approaches identify combinations of features that together are associated with the disease phenotype in patient sub-groups, capturing the non-linear effects of interactions between multiple genes. These signals are distinct from and complementary to the monogenic, linear additive associations of single SNPs found by GWAS.

The PrecisionLife combinatorial analysis platform enables hypothesis-free identification of combinatorial features, known as disease signatures, which may include multiple SNP genotypes and/or other multi-modal features in combination. These disease signatures capture both the linear and non-linear effects of genetic and molecular interaction networks and enable the identification of associations including those that are only relevant to a subgroup of patients that influence disease risk, prognosis and/or therapy response.

The combinatorial approach is considerably more sensitive than GWAS and requires much smaller patient populations. It enables identification of novel genetic associations and mechanisms that may only be relevant to a subgroup of patients, leading to more novel associations than GWAS when analysing the same datasets.

In complex heterogenous diseases, such as long COVID, CNS disorders, autoimmune, cardiovascular, respiratory, and metabolic diseases, these non-linear combinatorial signals, and disease signatures, are significantly more important in understanding causative disease biology than in relatively monogenic disorders.

Using combinatorial analytics, we identified genetic disease signatures (ie, combinations of genetic variants significantly associated with the development of long COVID) in two subpopulations of long COVID patients who had experienced either severe disease or a fatigue dominant phenotype.

We identified 73 genes linked to long COVID, of which nine genes have prior associations with acute COVID-19, and 14 were differentially expressed in a transcriptomic analysis of long COVID patients. Comparison of the long COVID analysis with our previous combinatorial analysis of ME/CFS patients from UK Biobank identified nine genes in common.

Pathway enrichment analyses revealed that the biological pathways most significantly associated with the 73 long COVID genes were mainly aligned with neurological and cardiometabolic diseases. The genes unique to Severe long COVID cohort were largely associated with immune pathways such as myeloid differentiation and macrophage foam cells while genes unique to the Fatigue Dominant cohort were enriched in metabolic pathways and processes such as MAPK/JNK signalling and cellular respiration.

We generated strong mechanism of action hypotheses for the role of these genes in the development of long COVID. Additionally, causal insights into the specific effects of key SNPs/genes on disease biology were generated by expanded genotype analysis of the disease signatures. Generation of such insights at scale using a hypothesis-free approach is a unique capability of the PrecisionLifes platform.

43 genes were identified to be strongly associated with the severe long COVID population who reported the greatest degree of symptoms experienced. The genes unique to the severe long COVID patients were found to be associated with immune pathways such as myeloid differentiation, macrophage foam cells and lipid signalling pathways. The greater number of genes involved in immune response in the Severe long COVID cohort could be indicative of a more severe form of SARS-CoV-2 acute infection. This may potentially arise as a result of patients experiencing higher viral loads than average, as we identified four genes that have been functionally linked to SARS-CoV-2 host response and/or acute severe COVID-19.

We identified five genes that were strongly associated with risk of development of long COVID in both the Severe and the Fatigue Dominant cohorts using our hypothesis-free approach. In addition, 23 genes identified in the Severe cohort were significantly associated with disease in the Fatigue Dominant cohort using hypothesis-driven analyses. To understand the biological differences underpinning these two clinical manifestations, we analysed the differences in pathways between the genes uniquely associated with the Severe and Fatigue Dominant cohorts.

When we evaluated the degree of similarity between the genes associated with ME/CFS and long COVID, we identified nine genes that were previously associated with ME/CFS. One of these genes is the CLOCK gene that is an important regulator of circadian rhythm, disruptions of which have been associated with impaired mitochondrial function and pain among other things. Dysregulated mitochondrial function results in the inability to meet energy demands in response to stressors such as exercise and can result in the post-exertional malaise that is a hallmark of both ME/CFS and Fatigue Dominant long COVID. We also identified the genes ATP9A and INSR in long COVID that we had hypothesised contributes to dysregulated insulin signalling in subgroups of ME/CFS patients. Type 2 diabetes-related signalling pathways and insulin resistance were also a key theme within the genes associated with long COVID.

42 genes were found to be potentially tractable for novel drug discovery approaches for long COVID, of these 13 genes have drugs in clinical development pipelines. We are currently evaluating these repurposing opportunities for use in treating long COVID and/or ME/CFS.

We identified the TLR4 gene as an attractive repurposing candidate with potential to protect against long term cognitive impairment pathology caused by SARS-CoV-2. Our analysis indicated disease signatures linked to TLR4 were strongly associated with development of long COVID in 52 percent of the Severe cohort. There is additional supporting evidence that inhibition of TLR4 in a mouse model prevents long term cognitive pathology caused by SARS-CoV-2 and some clinical studies have already shown that antagonising TLR4 signalling inhibits inflammatory cytokine storms and reduces mortality rates in hospitalised COVID-19 patients.

About the author

Dr Sayoni Das

SVP Bioinformatics at PrecisionLife

Sayoni leads the research and development of bioinformatics pipelines that generate biological insights from PrecisionLifes core technology and support drug discovery programmes.

She is a computational biologist with a background in bioprocess engineering and biotechnology. Sayoni received a PhD in Computational Biology from University College London where she developed a protein function prediction method that was ranked among the top methods in two consecutive protein-function prediction challenges.

Prior to joining PrecisionLife, Sayoni developed tools for interpretation of genetic variants as part of her post-doctoral research and served as project coordinator for a large academic structural bioinformatics project.

See more here:

The first major set of genetic associations found in long COVID - Drug Target Review

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, discusses Dr. Anthony Faucis upcoming testimony in front of House Republicans about the origins of COVID-19 on Varney & Co.

Pfizer on Wednesday forecast 2024 sales that could be as much as $5 billion below Wall Street expectations, a move top executives said provided a more reliable view of its COVID-19 business than it had this year, driving shares down 9% to a 10-year low.

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccines and treatments revenues, which peaked at $57 billion, are now expected to be $8 billion in 2024. That compares to the $13 billion analysts had foreseen and is down from Pfizer's lowered forecast for $12.5 billion in 2023.

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccines and treatments revenues, which peaked at $57 billion, are now expected to be $8 billion in 2024. (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic / Reuters)

"We want to be conservative," Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said on a conference call with investors. "We want to be reliable so we won't create uncertainty (again), which was the case, unfortunately, this year."

It also forecast 2024 adjusted profit in the range of $2.05 to $2.25 per share, lower than analysts' expectation of $3.16.

TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL KEN PAXTON SUES PFIZER, ALLEGES PHARMA GIANT LIED ABOUT COVID VACCINE EFFICACY

The drugmaker's shares, already down over 44% this so far this year, fell 8.7% in morning trading and were set to erase over $14 billion in market capitalization, if losses continued through the day.

Shares of Moderna and Pfizer's German partner in the vaccine, BioNTech SE, fell 5% each.

The lower forecasts come a day after the drugmaker said it would reorganize its cancer division to include the acquisition of Seagen. It also raised its cost-cut target by $500 million on Wednesday.

The U.S. drugmaker expects annual revenue in the range of $58.5 billion to $61.5 billion, compared with analysts' average estimate of $63.17 billion, according to LSEG data.

JPMORGAN PREDICTS A GRIM OUTLOOK FOR THE STOCK MARKET NEXT YEAR

The COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral pill Paxlovid helped Pfizer bring in over $100 billion in revenue in 2022. Pfizer had originally forecast sales of $21.5 million in COVID sales for 2023, but had to cut that forecast by more than 40% to around $12.5 billion.

The COVID-19 sales targets "likely represent a floor for 2024 sales," said J.P. Morgan analyst Chris Schott.

Paxlovid and the COVID-19 vaccine helped Pfizer bring in over $100 billion in revenue in 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images / Getty Images)

The drop in COVID product sales had also forced Pfizer to launch a program to cut jobs and expenses, which is now expected to save at least $4 billion a year by the end of 2024.

Pfizer had said on Tuesday that Chief Commercial Officer Angela Hwang would step down, and the company would reorganize its commercial business, not including oncology, into two divisions, one focused on the United States and the other on the rest of the world.

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Pfizer's $43 billion deal for cancer drugmaker Seagen, which is expected to close on Thursday, is expected to add $3.1 billion to revenue next year.

Citi analyst Andrew Baum said that Pfizer's management is acting with increasing urgency to address its weak stock performance. However, the absence of promising high-potential pipeline assets makes it difficult for the company as several Pfizer products are expected to go off patent in the next few years.

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Pfizer shares sink after it resets 2024 COVID expectations - Fox Business

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Drug-Drug Interactions Between COVID-19 Treatments and Psychotropic Medications: An Updated Study - Cureus