Sales of AZ COVID vaccine increased 32% to 655.3 billion won

Sales growth is not as high as Pfizer due to the difference between vaccination targets and vaccine prices

AstraZeneca Korea surpassed 600 billion won in sales last year by supplying the COVID-19 vaccine.

 

According to an audit report by AstraZeneca Korea, the company recorded 655.3 billion won in sales last year.

 

The figure is up 31.6 percent from the previous year's 498.1 billion won.

 

Operating profit was 26 billion won, up 7.5% from 24.2 billion won a year earlier.

 

It is analyzed that the increase in operating profit was relatively small because there was little difference between the purchase amount and domestic sales amount purchased globally.

 

AstraZeneca Korea, which has improved its performance with anticancer drug Tagrisso, saw its performance jump significantly last year when it supplied the COVID-19 vaccine AZD1222 in Korea.

 

After gradually increasing sales to 383.1 billion won in 2018, 438.9 billion won in 2019, and 498.1 billion won in 2020, sales jumped more than 100 billion won last year when the COVID-19 vaccine was introduced in earnest.

 

AstraZeneca started researching vaccines with a research team at Oxford University in the UK as COVID-19 spread around the world.

 

In particular, it received attention by signing a contract with SK Bioscience, a Korean company, to produce the COVID-19 vaccine on consignment.

 

Last year, SK Bioscience commissioned the production of AstraZeneca vaccine extract and the complement and supplied them to the global and domestic markets.

 

The Korean government signed a purchase contract with AstraZeneca early last year and introduced the vaccine in earnest.

 

At the beginning of the inoculation, when the supply and demand of the Pfizer vaccine were not smooth, AstraZeneca supplied most of the supplies.

 

Although it received the EUA around the same time as Pfizer, the increase in AstraZeneca sales is relatively small.

 

In the case of Pfizer Pharmaceutical Korea, which supplied the COVID-19 vaccine, sales reached a record high of 1.69 trillion won last year.

 

The figure increased by 332.3% from 391.9 billion won in the previous year.

 

Pfizer Pharmaceutical Korea generated about 1.3 trillion won worth of vaccine sales.

 

The difference in vaccine supply had a significant impact on the performance of the two companies.

 

This is because the use of the Astrazeneca vaccine has gradually declined as the number of vaccinations in Korea has been limited due to rare side effects, and the volume of modern and Pfizer vaccines has increased.

 

According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the total amount of Astrazeneca vaccinations over the first to third rounds is 20.32 million doses, which is one-third of Pfizer's 74.23 million doses.

 

In the first inoculation, about 25% of the total were vaccinated against Astrazeneca, but in the third inoculation, only 4% were vaccinated against Astrazeneca.

 

Vaccine prices have also led to differences in sales.

 

According to the company's stance that it will not make profits from the COVID-19 vaccine, the price of the AstraZeneca vaccine was set at $4 per dose, the cheapest.

 

It is only one-sixth the price of a Pfizer vaccine ($24).