The hits keep coming for BioNTech as the German drugmaker recorded a net loss of €315.1 million in Q1 while its total revenue dropped significantly.

The decline in demand for the COVID-19 vaccine it jointly developed with Pfizer continues to hamper the company, which saw its revenue fall from €1.2 billion this time last year to €187.6 million.

Of note, Pfizer released its latest earnings last week and raised its full year outlook after it reported higher-than-expected quarterly revenue. This came despite a drop in its Comirnaty and Paxlovid sales led to a year-over-year operational decrease in revenues of 19%.

Additionally, BioNTech’s diluted earnings per share dropped from €2.05 in Q1 2023 to a net loss per share of €1.31. Beyond the topline results, BioNTech’s quarterly R&D expenses totaled €507.5 million, up from €334 million in Q1 2023, while its general and administrative expenses increased from €111.8 million to €117 million.

Still, despite the declining financial performance, BioNTech reiterated its full year outlook of total revenue between €2.5 billion and €3.1 billion. The company also stated Monday morning that it expects most of its revenue to come in near the end of the year.

Lee Brown, global sector lead for healthcare at global research firm Third Bridge, wrote in a commentary analyzing the earnings report that BioNTech’s pivot towards opportunities in oncology focuses on immunomodulators and targeted therapies.

“We’re intrigued by BNT122, a uridine mRNA-lipoplex based cancer vaccine candidate for iNeST (individualized neoantigen-specific immunotherapy) that the company is developing in collaboration with Genentech. BNT122 is being evaluated in several phase 2 trials as a treatment for adjuvant resected PDAC (pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma), first-line melanoma and adjuvant colorectal cancer,” Brown wrote. “Finally, we note that BioNTech is planning to share additional clinical data from multiple clinical programs at the upcoming ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) annual meeting from May 31 to June 4. The company plans to highlight bispecific antibodies BNT311/GEN1046 (acasunlimab) and BNT327/PM8002, as well as “ADC BNT326/YL202.”

Recognizing the need to expand its offerings beyond COVID shots, BioNTech said in its release that it dosed its first patient in a Phase 3 trial for its breast cancer drug candidate BNT323/DB-1303 and plans to kick off a second Phase 3 trial for those treatments in recurrent endometrial cancer soon.

“In the past weeks, we have reported positive preliminary data for both our individualized and off-the-shelf mRNA-based candidates which further underline the potential of our iNeST and FixVac platforms. We look forward to providing more updates this year across our oncology portfolio, including our bispecific antibody and ADC programs,” BioNTech CEO Professor Ugur Sahin, MD said in a statement. “In the remainder of the year, we plan to develop and commercialize a variant-adapted COVID-19 vaccine and accelerate our clinical development activities towards realizing the full potential of our oncology pipeline with a view to becoming a commercial company with marketed medicines for cancer and infectious diseases.”