I recently bought shares of seven different companies. One of those companies was AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV). I had different reasons for buying each of the stocks. Some were in sectors in which I didn’t already have much exposure in my portfolio. That wasn’t the case with AbbVie, though. I already owned quite a few healthcare stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
AbbVie was unique. There wasn’t just one primary reason the stock caught my attention. Instead, multiple factors influenced my thinking. Here’s why I bought AbbVie stock — and why you might want to consider the biotech stock, too.
Image source: Getty Images.
Compelling growth story
I like growth. Period. End of story.
What I really like about AbbVie was that it has grown revenue and earnings at a solid pace — and it’s not even close to the end of the story for the company’s growth. AbbVie projects double-digit percentage annual adjusted earnings per share growth through 2020.Wall Street agrees, with the consensus estimate among analysts predicting average annual earnings growth of more than 14% over the next five years.
Top 10 Biotech Stocks For 2018: ARIAD Pharmaceuticals Inc.(ARIA)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Lisa Levin]
Healthcare shares gained around 0.73 percent in trading on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARIA), and VCA Inc (NASDAQ: WOOF).
Top 10 Biotech Stocks For 2018: ArQule Inc.(ARQL)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Paul Ausick]
ArQule Inc. (NASDAQ: ARQL) dropped about 23% Friday, to post a new 52-week low of $1.13 after closing at $1.47 on Thursday. The stock’s 52-week high is $2.17. Volume was about 15 times the daily average of around 150,000 shares. The biopharmaceutical company said this morning that a phase 3 trial of a cancer drug did not meet the primary endpoint of improving overall survival.
Top 10 Biotech Stocks For 2018: Biogen Idec Inc(BIIB)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By WWW.THESTREET.COM]
Breakups have the potential to create a lot of value. Just look at what Biogen (BIIB) did with its hemophilia franchise. Spun out as Bioverativ (BIVV) , shares started trading earlier this year. The stock has climbed some 23% on seemingly no news, Cramer noted.
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Biogen (BIIB) has dropped 2.2% to $286.16 after getting cut to Market Perform from Outperform at Leerink, and to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
- [By WWW.MONEYSHOW.COM]
Biogen (BIIB)
Biogen discovers, develops and delivers innovative therapies for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and autoimmune disorders.
Top 10 Biotech Stocks For 2018: Amgen Inc.(AMGN)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Chris Lange]
Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) saw its short interest increase to 7.78 million shares from the previous level of 7.38 million. Shares closed most recently at $145.34, in a 52-week trading range of $133.64 to $176.85.
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Amgen (AMGN) has tumbled 3.6% to $158.65 after beating earnings forecasts but missing on sales.
Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) has dropped 3% to $157.51 after its earnings fell short of the Street consensus.
- [By Tom Gentile]
After the Senate scored the votes on Tuesday to review a plan for repealing or repealing and replacing what’s come to be known as Obamacare, we saw a mixed-bag reaction from healthcare stocks. Even some of the bulletproof ones, like Amgen Inc. (Nasdaq: AMGN), closed lower from their opening highs.
- [By Todd Shriber, ETF Professor]
Several big-name biotech companies step into the earnings confessional starting in the middle of the week, with Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN), Anthem Inc (NYSE: ANTM), and Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ: CELG) among the companies in play. That could bring opportunity with the Direxion Daily S&P Biotech Bull 3X Shares (NYSE: LABU) and the Direxion Daily S&P Biotech Bear 3X Shares (NYSE: LABD).
- [By WWW.THESTREET.COM]
Finally on Friday, Tiffany (TIF) reports, and Cramer is betting on positive news now that the company has an activist involved. He was also bullish on Amgen’s (AMGN) analyst meeting, saying investors should use any market weakness earlier in the week to buy.
- [By Stavros Georgiadis]
Gilead Sciences (NSDQ:GILD) has underperformed the market with its stock price down almost 25% compared to a 10.33% gain in Nasdaq Composite (INDX:COMPX) and 14.60% gain of Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDX:INDU). Gilead and Amgen (NSDQ:AMGN)have had a very tough year, so it is interesting to know if now is the time to invest in GILD stock, not from a bottom fishing point of investing, which is often too risky, but on some solid financial and fundamentals arguments.
Top 10 Biotech Stocks For 2018: Medivation Inc.(MDVN)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Reports suggest that Gilead Sciences (GILD) and Celgene (CELG) have joined the bidding process forMedivation (MDVN), one that already includes (maybe) Amgen (AMGN), and of course Sanofi (SNY), which is trying to throw out Medivation’s board. Of the three biotech giants, Citigroup’s Robyn Karnauskas and team argue that Amgen is best positioned to win the battle. They explain why:
- [By Monica Gerson]
Benzinga's newsdesk monitors options activity to notice unusual patterns. These large volume (and often out of the money) trades were initially published intraday in Benzinga Professional . These trades were placed during Friday's regular session.
PACCAR Inc (NASDAQ: PCAR) Aug16 52.5 Puts: 10000 @ ASK $1.70: 10k traded vs 335 OI: Earnings 7/26 $54.94 Ref
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: REGN) Jul16 345 Puts: 949 @ ASK $8.70: 1003 traded vs 55 OI: Earnings 8/2 $360.20 Ref
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) Fri 6/24 47.0 Puts (Wkly) Sweep: 689 @ ASK $1.12: 3758 traded vs 136 OI: Earnings 8/4 $46.69 Ref
Medivation Inc (NASDAQ: MDVN) Sep16 55.0 Puts: 4000 @ Above Ask! $3.40: 5303 traded vs 716 OI: Earnings 8/4 $59.44 Ref
Expeditors International of Washington (NASDAQ: EXPD) Aug16 47.0 Puts Sweep: 950 @ ASK $1.35: 973 traded vs 381 OI: Earnings 8/2 $48.15 Ref
Posted-In: Huge Put PurchasesNews Options Markets
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Well, it looks like Medivation (MDVN) now has five suitors after reports that Amgen (AMGN) is joining Pfizer (PFE), Sanofi (SNY), AstraZeneca (AZN) and Novartis (NVS) in considering a bid. Maxim’s Jason Kolbert and Jason McCarthy offer their thoughts:
Medivation reports tonight at 4:30pm…
We expect the focus to be on the recent proposals from Sanofi (SNY $38.75- NR); Pfizer (PFE $33.40 -NR), AstraZeneca (AZN $28.26-NR) and just today, Amgen (AMGN – $154.18 – NR)…
Medivation is returning to new highs as suitors line up to make acquisition bids. In this scenario what is the right discount rate for modeling purposes?
We believe our model for Xtandi revenues is good, therefore we review our risk rating and determine the following: 30% = $47 15% = $76 10% = $99
With Medivation’s board having now said No to anything less than $65 per share, it suggests to us that the stability and predictability of Xtandi’s revenues is greater than we thought, the risk is lower. Our intermediate risk rating is 15% or $76 fair value.
Shares of Medivation rose 0.3% to $59.22 today, while Pfizer gained 0.5% to $33.56, Sanofi fell 0.5% to $39.07, AstraZeneca dropped 0.6% to $39.07, Novartis declined 0.3% to $74.12, and Amgen ticked up 0.1% to $154.25.
- [By Monica Gerson]
Medivation Inc (NASDAQ: MDVN) is said to have spurned recent takeover approach from France’s Sanofi SA (ADR) (NYSE: SNY), according to sources as reported by Bloomberg on Tuesday. Sanofi wants Medivation’s treatments for hard-to-cure cancers, the sources said. Medivation shares surged 8.46 percent to $49.60 in the after-hours trading session, while Sanofi shares fell 0.59 percent to $42.02 in after-hours trading.
- [By Ben Levisohn]
RBC’s Simos Simeonidis and Matthew Eckler try to find the right comparison for Pfizer’s (PFE) purchase of Medivation (MDVN):
Scott Eisen/Bloomberg News
We were obviously wrong with our Sector Perform rating: while we knew an M&A transaction was definitely a good possibility, we just could not get to this level of valuation using a realistic Xtandi model and thus could not recommend the stock. The only way for us to get to $81.50 (or even to $60-$70/share) would have been to assign very significant value to talazoparib. And we could not do that given the amount of available clinical evidence.Medivation shareholders who held on to their shares past the $50′s, did just that, were proven right and are now rewarded for it, since they believed that someone would be willing to pay for this asset just months ahead of Phase III data. The key question is why would a company be willing to part with what they claim/think may be a multibillion dollar drug that works in multiple cancers. We believe the obvious answer is because they’re smart and understand drug development risk better than most. We’ll know in a matter of months whether Pfizer/Medivation is like Amgen (AMGN)-Onyx (carfilzomib) or not.
Top 10 Biotech Stocks For 2018: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc.(ALNY)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Brian Orelli]
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY) jumped as much as 14.5% today after announcing earnings after the bell yesterday. As a development-stage biotech, it wasn’t the revenue or the earnings that caused the spike, but the progression of Allnylam’s pipeline.
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Yesterday, after markets closed, it was announced that US Federal District Court Judge Sue Robinson ruled to issue a permanent injunction against Praluent, the PCSK9 mAb for hypercholesterolemia from partners Regeneron and Sanofi, due to infringement of patents from Amgen. The court has imposed a 30-day suspension (stay) on the injunction to allow for settlement or appeal of the District Court decision. Sanofi and Regeneron have announced their intent to appeal the ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). The injunction decision is consistent with our counter-consensus published views communicated on 25 January 2016 (“Downgrade to Sell on evidence of likely infringement of Amgen’s PCSK9 patents”) and subsequently. Based on consultation with expert legal counsel, we now put >75% probability Amgen will prevail on appeal and/or Praluent is ultimately removed from the US market, and/or Amgen achieves a settlement substantially in its favor. We currently model $3.3 bn in non-risk-adjusted 2022E US revenues for Praluent, while consensus models $1.2 bn in 2022E US revenues. We reiterate our view from 25 January 2016 to preferentially own Amgen, The Medicines Company (MDCO) (Buy), and Alnylam (ALNY) (Buy) over Regeneron for exposure to PCSK9 inhibitor market dynamics as outcomes trials approach.
- [By Cory Renauer]
Treating diseases that have a genetic component by altering the expression of the responsible genes is a promising new field of medicine, but it has been much less straightforward than biopharmaceutical companies had expected. Two contenders in this area, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY) and Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IONS), saw a mix of setbacks and success in 2016.
- [By Lisa Levin]
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALNY) shares shot up 53 percent to $114.87 after the company impressed investors with encouraging data from a phase 3 clinical trial. Alnylam, a company dedicated towards treating a wide range of debilitating diseases through ribonucleic acid (RNA) interference (RNAi) therapeutics, said after Tuesday's market close that a phase 3 study called APOLLO met its primary efficacy endpoint and all secondary endpoints.
