Pfizer has released its financial results for the quarter to June 2021, reporting a near doubling in sales year-on-year.

The company earned a net profit of $5.6bn during the quarter, up 60%.

Revenue growth was largely driven by strong demand for its Covid-19 vaccine, which garnered c.$8bn in revenue during Q2. The company now expects to deliver 2.1 billion doses of the vaccine in 2021 under contracts signed by mid-July.

Pfizer is set to manufacture up to 3 billion doses of the vaccine by the end of 2021 in anticipation of future contracts for booster doses and deliveries to unvaccinated regions.

Despite a 50% profit split with its commercial partner BioNTech and adjustment costs at its manufacturing facilities, the company earns a 25-30% margin on sales of the vaccine.

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The report also stated that trials of the vaccine in children as young as six months old and of a third booster shot for adults were under way, with results expected later in the year.

Initial lab results indicated that a third booster shot elicited a much stronger immune response to the delta variant than the regular two dose regime.

Excluding the vaccine, operational revenues grew 10% in the second quarter. The company cautioned that this growth was driven by increased sales of lower margin products.

Pfizer CFO Frank D’Amelio said: “It is important to point out that the 10% year-over-year operational revenue growth rate for our business excluding BNT162b2 comes on top of a strong 6% operational growth rate delivered by the comparable business in the second quarter of last year."