Pfizer lifts full-year profit forecast after earnings top estimates

Investors have also been tracking the performance of the company's new RSV vaccine, which has been trailing a rival shot from GSK since they both launched

Pfizer said it still expects $8bn in combined sales of its covid products, the vaccine Comirnaty it shares with BionTech and oral antiviral Paxlovid. File picture: Dan Linehan

Pfizer — the drug giant that employs almost 5,000 people at sites in Kildare, Cork, and Dublin — lifted its annual profit forecast and posted first-quarter results that topped analysts' estimates. 

It comes as the company cut costs and posted a smaller-than-feared drop in sales of its covid treatment and strong sales of its pneumonia vaccine.