Abbott Labs (ABT) is a consistent performer with diversified healthcare operations, including pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, medical nutrition products, and medical devices/stents. ABT is back to the lower end of its trading range near 50 bucks, presenting an excellent entry point with a 2.8% dividend yield and forward PE of about 14X.
Celgene (CELG) is also trading at the low end of its trading range around 50 bucks as a large-cap growth stock focused on cancer biotech products and research with an estimated PEG ratio below one.
China Medical (CMED) is trading near its IPO levels of August 2005 despite excellent growth prospects and is a buy below 20 bucks with a dividend yield of 2.5% and market cap of $540M as uncertainty over a $345M acquisition has spooked some investors, sending the stock down sharply by over 50% in the past three months. The acquisition provides CMED with a molecular diagnostics platform for HPV, including strains that cause cervical cancer – which is an estimated $700M market in China alone.
Pfizer (PFE) is a stock I have
written about before, which currently has a dividend yield over 8% while trading at a forward PE of under 7X and represents a value, turnaround play with the cash to make targeted acquisitions to bolster its pipeline in anticipation of generic competition for Lipitor while the Company also makes a bigger push into
generic drugs beyond its in-house Greenstone division. Three more big pharma companies with yields over 6% to look at include Merck (MRK), Bristol-Myers (BMY), and Eli Lilly (LLY) – with LLY still waiting on a FDA decision for Effient (prasugrel) to compete with multi-billion dollar blood thinner Plavix.
Momenta Pharma (MNTA) and Novartis (NVS) expect to launch a generic version (M-Enoxaparin) of the injectable blood thinner Lovenox in 2009, pending approval of their ANDA by the Generic Division of the FDA. With Momenta trading in single digits again after reaching as high as $20 per share earlier this summer; an approval for M-Enoxaparin would be a significant catalyst since Lovenox posted sales of about $4B in the last year for Sanofi-Aventis (SNY). While other companies such as Teva (TEVA) and Watson Pharma (WPI) also have pending applications for generic Lovenox, it is encouraging the researchers from Momenta contributed to determining the cause of the tainted heparin earlier this year.
The following companies have major
FDA product approval decisions expected in the upcoming months which could easily move the underlying stock prices by 100%-plus to the upside or 50%-plus to the downside. Te first group of companies involve decisions for abuse-resistant pain drugs, including Pain Therapeutics (PTIE) + King Pharma (KG) for Remoxy and Alpharma (ALO) for Embeda. Now that Alpharma has accepted King Pharma's $1.6B buyout bid, the latter reflects a way to trade both decisions in a single stock for twice the chances of approval.
