April 14, 2017
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
What goes up must come down. But that’s not something most people want out of the stock market. But, noting that the S&P 500 is up more than 200 percent since the end of 2008, Todd Campbell, writing for The Motley Fool, takes a look at a biopharma company that he thinks would survive any kind of stock market drop or even crash—Celgene .
Investors have cited Celgene, based in Summit, NJ, as the fastest growing biotech stock. It hasn’t been all smooth sailing, however. Shares traded on June 27, 2016 for $94.85, rose to $116.27 on Aug. 4, 2016, then dropped to $98.07 on Oct. 24, 2016. They went back up to $124.16 on Nov. 21, 2016, then down again to $111.53 on Jan. 26, 2017. Shares are currently for $124.45.
The company’s top seller is Revlimid, used to treat first- and second-line multiple myeloma. In 2016, Revlimid brought in $7 billion, accounting for about 62 percent of Celgene sales. It also has Pomalyst for third-line multiple myeloma and Abraxane for pancreatic cancer. It has a chance later this year of approval for a new leukemia drug co-developed with Agios . It also has Otezla for psoriasis and hopes to have a New Drug Application (NDA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a new multiple sclerosis (MS) drug later this year.
The company also has around 30 drugs in its pipeline that are involved in more than 300 clinical trials. They include treatments for hematological and solid tumor cancers, including multiple myeloma, myelodysplastic syndromes, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), triple-negative breast cancer and pancreatic cancer.
Campbell notes that it’s a little bit crazy to recommend a biotech stock to weather a downturn—biotech stocks are notoriously volatile. He writes, “Since markets don’t go up or down in a straight line, it stands to reason that stocks could drop after their big runs higher. However, stocks can climb further than pundits think, and the best growth stocks often lead post-drop recoveries. Because no one knows when a market drop or recovery might happen, I think investors ought to focus on owning great companies that market products untied to economic whims and whispers, and that’s why I like Celgene.”
Campbell’s colleague at The Motley Fool, Keith Speights, recently proposed a daring idea—what if Gilead Sciences (GILD) bought Celgene? Gilead has two blockbuster hematology cancer drugs, Revlimid and Pomalyst. It has Abraxane for breast cancer, lung cancer, and pancreatic cancer. It has seven other oncology pipeline products.
Gilead’s chief executive officer, John Milligan, has stated publicly that he’s interested in expanding into inflammatory drugs. Speights wrote, “Celgene is a great fit there, also. Otezla is already making money hand over fist as a treatment for psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. The drug is being evaluated for treating four other autoimmune disease indications as well. Celgene’s pipeline boasts several strong anti-inflammatory candidates, especially ozanimod and GED-0301.”
That’s a very unlikely scenario, partly because Celgene would be expensive. Its market cap is about $97 billion, and is actually bigger than Gilead’s.
However, it does speak to Celgene’s position in the biotech industry, where it appears to be gaining the status of a biotech “blue chip” stock of the likes of Genentech , Biogen , and Amgen , companies that are still innovative, but dominate particular franchises while expanding into others. In other words, reliable.
Campbell writes, “Overall, Celgene expects sales of $21 billion in 2020, and that’s pretty remarkable given this year’s expectations are for sales of $13 billion. Clearly, a lot is going right for this company, and I think that makes this stock a great one to own through good and bad times.”
