Pfizer on Friday denies that the company is conducting gain of function or directed evolution research.

Undated photo shows a vial of Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. (Photo: Xinhua)

"In the ongoing development of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer has not conducted gain of function or directed evolution research," Pfizer said in a statement.

US news website Project Veritas on Wednesday released an undercover video of a Pfizer executive bragging about how his company conducts Frankenstein science, manipulating COVID virus variants for profit.

Pfizer has worked with collaborators to conduct research where the original SARS-CoV-2 virus has been used to express the spike protein from new variants of concern, according to the statement.

"This research provides a way for us to rapidly assess the ability of an existing vaccine to induce antibodies that neutralize a newly identified variant of concern," Pfizer added.

Pfizer emphasized that fact-based information rooted in sound science is vitally important to overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic and Pfizer remains committed to transparency and helping alleviate the devastating burden of this disease.

According to Pfizer's financial report, the sales of the oral treatment, PAXLOVID has reached 9.6 billion USD in the first half of 2022, with the number hitting 7.514 billion in the third quarter alone, totaling 17.199 billion USD in the first three quarters of the previous year.

Data showed that Paxlovid and Comirnaty accounted for 33.2% and 19.4% of Q3 revenue respectively, with COVID-19 products accounting for more than half of the company's revenue.

(Compiled by Zhu Yingqi and Wang Qingxiu)