Johnson & Johnson: COVID-19 vaccine sales could jump 46 percent this year

Johnson & Johnson announced on Tuesday that sales of its COVID-19 vaccine could jump by 46 percent this year as demand for the shot increases and manufacturing issues wane.

The company said it is estimating COVID-19 vaccine sales to be between $3 billion and $3.5 billion in 2022, which is more than the $2.39 billion it earned for the company in 2021, according to Reuters.

If the company rakes in $3.5 billion from vaccine sales next year, it will represent a roughly 46 percent increase.

Johnson & Johnson’s estimates for 2022 come with its fourth quarter earnings report, which fell short of making $2.5 billion through vaccine purchases in 2021.

The drugmaker’s stock dropped almost 2 percent before the market opened on Tuesday, likely a result of the company falling short of fourth quarter expectations and unpromising performances of its cancer drug Imbruvica and Crohn’s disease treatment Stelara, according to Reuters.

Capital raised from the COVID-19 vaccine, however, is not expected to be a large part of Johnson & Johnson’s revenue, as the company sells the shot at a not-for-profit price, Reuters noted.

The company said it expects to bring in between $98.9 billion and $100.4 billion in sales next year, which would mark an increase of between 5.5 percent and 7 percent from last year, according to a statement from the company. Expectations currently stand at $97.79 billion, according to Reuters.

While the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is still available in the U.S. under emergency use authorization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month recommended that health providers offer the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines over the Johnson & Johnson shot, pointing to an increased risk of blood clots in young and middle-aged women.

The vaccine has been linked to a rare, yet severe, type of blood clot called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome. That discovery led to the pause of the shot for 10 days in April.

The CDC last month said through Aug. 31, of the roughly 14 million Johnson & Johnson shots administered, 54 people were diagnosed with the condition, which was still determined to be rare but was more common than previously thought.