Pfizer (PFE) Q2 2026: $4.3B Write-Off Flips Profit to Loss
Pfizer's second-quarter net loss of $248 million is an accounting event, not an operating one. Revenue rose 2.6% to $15,034 million and first-half operating cash flow nearly doubled to $3,450 million, but a $4,325 million non-cash intangible write-off — $3.8 billion of it tied to a single failed Phase 3 readout — dragged pre-tax income to $(653) million. Strip out the write-off, the $1,870 million ViiV disposal gain, restructuring and legal charges, and normalized pre-tax profit still fell 6.1% year over year, because gross margin compressed 1.4 percentage points while R&D spending climbed 13.2%. For a company whose balance sheet carries $118.5 billion of goodwill and intangibles against $85.5 billion of equity, the write-off matters less for what it cost this quarter than for what it signals about the assets still on the books.
1. Consolidated Balance Sheet
1-1. Principal asset movements
| Item | Dec 31, 2025 ($M) | Jun 28, 2026 ($M) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash and cash equivalents | 1,142 | 976 | −14.5% |
| Short-term investments | 12,454 | 10,723 | −13.9% |
| Trade accounts receivable, net | 11,874 | 12,490 | +5.2% |
| Inventories | 10,654 | 9,945 | −6.7% |
| Property, plant and equipment, net | 19,317 | 19,029 | −1.5% |
| Identifiable intangible assets, net | 53,731 | 47,053 | −12.4% |
| Goodwill | 71,264 | 71,419 | +0.2% |
| Total assets | 208,160 | 201,131 | −3.4% |
The intangible line tells the story. Net identifiable intangibles fell $6,678 million in six months. Amortization explains $2,368 million of that; the $4,325 million impairment explains most of the rest. Within the balance, indefinite-lived IPR&D dropped from $21,760 million to $17,320 million (−20.4%), reflecting the $3.8 billion write-down plus a $580 million reclassification of Tukysa to developed technology rights.
Liquidity thinned. Cash plus short-term investments fell from $13,596 million to $11,699 million, a 14.0% draw. A large part went to tax: income taxes payable collapsed from $3,103 million to $653 million as Pfizer paid the eighth and final instalment of its $15 billion 2017 repatriation tax liability by its April 15, 2026 due date. That obligation is now retired — a recurring cash drag that disappears from 2027.
