Prognosis
Sinovac Warns Vaccine Revenue Windfall May Not Be Sustained
- Chinese Covid shot maker swings back to profit in first half
- Early studies show Sinovac not as effective against omicron
A health worker prepares to administer a booster dose of the Sinovac Biotech Covid-19 vaccine in Malaysia on Dec. 8.
Photographer: Samsul Said/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech Ltd saw sales in the first half of 2021 explode to more than 160 times what they were a year earlier, but cautioned future revenue could slip amid competition from other Covid-19 shots.
The Beijing-based company’s sales surged to $11 billion in the first six months of 2021, compared to just $67.7 million in the same period of 2020, when Sinovac had just began early human testing of its Covid inoculation, called CoronaVac. The vaccine maker recorded $5.1 billion in profit for the period, compared with a loss of $12.6 million in the first half of 2020, it said in a press release on Friday.