What Vaccines Does Pfizer Make? Their Full Lineup

Pfizer manufactures or co-develops vaccines against at least half a dozen diseases, spanning everything from pneumonia and meningitis to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and tick-borne encephalitis. The company’s COVID-19 vaccine made it a household name in immunology, but Pfizer was already one of the world’s largest vaccine producers before the pandemic, and its portfolio has only expanded since. Several more candidates are in late-stage clinical trials.

COVID-19 Vaccines

The vaccine most people associate with Pfizer is Comirnaty, originally designated BNT162b2, developed in partnership with the German biotech firm BioNTech. It was the first COVID-19 vaccine authorized in the United States and Europe, arriving in December 2020. Comirnaty uses messenger RNA (mRNA) enclosed in lipid nanoparticles to instruct cells to produce the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, triggering an immune response without exposing you to the live virus. Research into how the vaccine activates immune defenses found that the CD8+ T cell response it generates depends on a signaling pathway involving type I interferon and a sensor called MDA5, rather than several of the toll-like receptor pathways scientists initially suspected.¹

Since the original formulation, Pfizer-BioNTech has released updated versions of the vaccine to match circulating variants. The bivalent formulations targeting both the original strain and Omicron subvariants were followed by monovalent updates aligned with more recent variants. Safety data from clinical trials, post-marketing surveillance systems, and large-scale real-world studies now constitute one of the largest bodies of vaccine safety evidence ever assembled for a single product.²

Pneumococcal Vaccines

Before COVID put Pfizer on every evening newscast, the company’s biggest vaccine franchise was its pneumococcal conjugate line. Prevnar 13 (PCV13) was for years the standard conjugate vaccine used in children and older adults to prevent invasive pneumococcal disease, a category that includes bloodstream infections, meningitis, and certain types of pneumonia. Pfizer then developed Prevnar 20 (PCV20), which uses the same conjugation platform as its predecessor but covers seven additional bacterial serotypes on top of the original thirteen.³ That brings the total to twenty serotypes in a single shot, which matters because the strains responsible for disease shift over time as older vaccine-targeted serotypes decline and others fill the ecological gap.

The public-health impact of Pfizer’s pneumococcal vaccines extends well beyond the people who receive them directly. When children are routinely vaccinated, the bacteria circulate less in the community, and unvaccinated adults benefit too. A systematic review of data from multiple countries found that rates of invasive pneumococcal disease and pneumonia in adults dropped in most settings after conjugate vaccines entered national childhood immunization programs, with adults over 65 appearing to benefit the most from this indirect protection.⁴ Epidemiological surveillance in England confirmed a dramatic decline in the original PCV7-targeted serotypes among older adults after the childhood program launched, though increases in non-vaccine serotypes partly offset those gains and kept overall disease rates roughly flat.⁵ That serotype replacement phenomenon is a key reason broader-valency vaccines like PCV20 matter.

Modeling work has estimated that switching from PCV7 to PCV13 in childhood programs could prevent thousands to tens of thousands of invasive disease cases over a twenty-year period compared to stopping conjugate vaccination entirely, depending on how aggressively the additional serotypes compete with non-vaccine strains.⁶ With PCV20 now covering even more serotypes, the hope is to stay ahead of replacement dynamics for longer.

Pneumococcal Vaccines in Low-Income Settings

Pfizer’s pneumococcal vaccines also have a significant presence in lower-income countries through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Under an Advance Market Commitment (AMC) arrangement originally launched in 2009, Pfizer and another major manufacturer were each contracted to supply 30 million doses of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine at reduced prices. Through subsequent procurement rounds, the per-dose cost dropped from an initial $3.50 to around $2.90, with further reductions anticipated.⁷ These tiered pricing arrangements are a recurring feature of Pfizer’s vaccine business and have meaningfully expanded access to pneumococcal protection in countries where the disease burden is heaviest.

RSV Vaccine (Abrysvo)

Respiratory syncytial virus causes serious lower respiratory infections, particularly in infants and older adults. Pfizer’s Abrysvo, approved in 2023, is the company’s entry into this space. It is a recombinant protein vaccine (not mRNA) that contains stabilized prefusion antigens targeting both of RSV’s major antigenic subgroups, RSV-A and RSV-B, making it bivalent.⁸

What sets Abrysvo apart from other RSV vaccines is the breadth of its approved populations. It is authorized for adults aged 60 and older, which is the more conventional use case for any respiratory vaccine. But it is also approved for pregnant individuals between 32 and 36 weeks of gestation, the idea being that a vaccinated mother produces antibodies that cross the placenta and protect her newborn during the first months of life, when RSV poses the greatest danger.⁸ This maternal immunization strategy gives families an alternative to monoclonal antibody injections administered directly to infants.

Meningococcal Vaccines

Pfizer currently markets Trumenba, a vaccine against serogroup B meningococcal disease (MenB), in the United States and other markets. Meningococcal B is one of the leading causes of bacterial meningitis in adolescents and young adults in countries where routine childhood vaccination has brought the A, C, W, and Y serogroups under control. Trumenba works by targeting a protein called factor H binding protein (fHbp), which sits on the surface of the bacterium.

Beyond its existing product, Pfizer has a pentavalent meningococcal vaccine in clinical development that would combine protection against serogroups A, B, C, W, and Y into a single shot, designated MenABCWY. A phase 2b trial in infants found that the MenABCWY vaccine produced robust immune responses against the A, C, W, and Y serogroups comparable to existing combination regimens, while its responses against MenB test strains were higher than those seen with a competitor’s serogroup B vaccine given alongside a separate A/C/W/Y vaccine.⁹ If approved, a single pentavalent vaccine could simplify immunization schedules substantially, replacing what currently requires two separate vaccine products.

Tick-Borne Encephalitis Vaccine (TicoVac)

Less familiar to readers in North America, Pfizer’s TicoVac (also marketed under the names FSME-Immun and FSME-Immun Junior for children) protects against tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), a viral infection transmitted by tick bites that can cause inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. TBE is a significant public health concern across much of Europe and parts of Asia, particularly in forested and rural areas where the Ixodes tick vector is common.

A systematic review of the European TBE vaccines found that TicoVac (FSME-Immun) had an estimated long-term efficacy of about 90%, while the other available European product, Encepur, came in slightly higher at roughly 96%.¹⁰ Separate effectiveness data showed that even after just two primary doses of TicoVac, protection was consistently high, in the range of 95–97%, for at least five months, which is enough coverage for travelers visiting endemic regions during a single tick season.¹¹ Residents of endemic areas typically receive a three-dose primary series followed by periodic boosters.

Vaccines in the Pipeline

Pfizer has several vaccine candidates in mid-to-late-stage development that could significantly broaden its portfolio if they reach approval.

Lyme Disease (VLA15)

Pfizer is co-developing VLA15 with the Austrian biotech company Valneva. It would be the first Lyme disease vaccine available in decades, filling a gap left when a previous Lyme vaccine was pulled from the market in 2002. VLA15 is a protein subunit vaccine targeting outer surface protein A (OspA) on the Lyme-causing bacterium. It covers six OspA serotypes, which collectively represent the major species of Borrelia responsible for Lyme disease in both North America and Europe.¹²

Phase 2 data in over 600 participants aged 5 to 65 showed that VLA15 was safe and well tolerated across children and adults after all doses, with most side effects being mild or moderate. A booster dose at 18 months triggered a strong recall immune response against all six serotypes, and children mounted higher immune responses than adults in both the two-dose and three-dose schedules tested.¹³ A phase 3 trial is underway. If successful, VLA15 would address a disease that has been expanding geographically in both the United States and Europe as tick habitats shift with climate change.

Combined Flu and COVID mRNA Vaccine

Pfizer and BioNTech are developing combination mRNA vaccines that would target both influenza and COVID-19 in a single injection. The candidates, designated mRNA-1020 and mRNA-1030, aim to reduce the number of shots needed each respiratory season. A review comparing these candidates with a rival combination vaccine found that Pfizer’s versions demonstrated strong immune responses and favorable safety profiles, though they appeared slightly less effective against influenza B than the competing product.¹⁴ If one of these candidates reaches market, it could consolidate two annual vaccinations into one, which public health officials hope would improve uptake for both diseases.

The mRNA and Lipid Nanoparticle Platform

Several of Pfizer’s current and pipeline vaccines rely on mRNA technology, and the lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery system is a critical part of why they work. The LNP is not just a passive wrapper for the fragile mRNA molecule. Research has shown it serves multiple active roles: it shields the mRNA from degradation, facilitates uptake into cells, helps the mRNA escape from internal compartments where it would otherwise be destroyed, and even contributes its own adjuvant-like properties that help shape the immune response.¹⁵ Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID vaccines demonstrated that LNPs could deliver mRNA effectively at scale.¹⁶

This platform gives Pfizer a significant advantage for rapid vaccine development. Because the manufacturing process for mRNA vaccines is largely the same regardless of the target pathogen, the company can swap in a new mRNA sequence encoding a different protein without redesigning the entire production line. That flexibility was how variant-updated COVID boosters were produced quickly and is now being applied to the flu-COVID combination candidates and potentially to other infectious disease targets.

Cold Chain and Distribution Challenges

One practical reality that shaped how Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines reached people was their demanding storage requirements. The original Comirnaty formulation required ultra-cold storage at around minus 70 degrees Celsius, far colder than what standard medical freezers maintain. Shipments were packed with dry ice in specially designed thermal containers holding roughly 4,875 doses each, with GPS-enabled temperature monitors tracking conditions from factory to clinic.¹⁷

That ultra-cold requirement was a real obstacle for many clinics, rural health departments, and low-income countries that simply did not have the freezer infrastructure. Later formulations improved stability enough to allow storage at standard freezer or even refrigerator temperatures for limited periods, which significantly eased distribution. By contrast, Pfizer’s non-mRNA vaccines like Abrysvo (RSV) and Prevnar 20 (pneumococcal) use conventional refrigerator storage, which is one reason protein-based vaccines remain easier to deploy globally.

Post-Marketing Safety Surveillance

With billions of Comirnaty doses administered worldwide, Pfizer’s COVID vaccine has been subject to an unprecedented level of post-marketing safety scrutiny. In the United States, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) collected tens of thousands of reports in the early months of the rollout. An analysis of the first three months of U.S. data, covering Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and the Janssen vaccine, found that serious adverse events were present in about 14% of all reports, which corresponded to a tiny fraction of the total vaccinated population. The study found no emerging trends in previously unknown serious side effects and reported that Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines had similar safety profiles with respect to the probability of death.¹⁸

It is worth understanding what VAERS data actually represent. VAERS is a passive reporting system, meaning anyone (a doctor, a patient, a family member) can submit a report of an event that happened after vaccination, whether or not the vaccine caused it. A report of a heart attack after vaccination does not mean the vaccine caused the heart attack. The system is designed to detect potential signals that warrant further investigation, not to establish cause and effect. More rigorous pharmacovigilance studies and real-world analyses are what ultimately confirmed rare risks like myocarditis in young males and helped regulatory agencies update their guidance accordingly.²

Other Pfizer Vaccines Worth Knowing About

Beyond the products covered above, Pfizer’s portfolio includes or has included several other vaccines that tend to get less attention. The company has been a major supplier of combination childhood vaccines in various markets. Pfizer also acquired Wyeth in 2009, which brought with it the original Prevnar (PCV7) pneumococcal vaccine franchise and expanded the company’s vaccine manufacturing capabilities substantially.

In some regions, Pfizer markets or has marketed vaccines against other conditions as well. Its TicoVac tick-borne encephalitis line, for instance, includes a pediatric formulation (TicoVac Junior/FSME-Immun Junior) with a reduced antigen dose for children. The company also has investments in exploring mRNA-based cancer vaccines, therapeutic vaccines, and other non-infectious-disease applications of the platform technology it scaled during the pandemic, though those sit outside the scope of traditional prophylactic immunization.

Taken together, Pfizer’s active vaccine lineup spans at least six distinct diseases: COVID-19, pneumococcal disease, RSV, meningococcal disease, tick-borne encephalitis, and potentially Lyme disease if VLA15 clears its phase 3 trial. For a company that many people associate primarily with pills and the pandemic, the vaccine business is surprisingly broad and growing broader each year.