Merck & Company (MRK)

Unfortunately, pharmas/biotech have had a bit of a rough go. It was the mega-caps, not the small guys. This one reason he likes using ETF's in his mix. He prefers using the Spider S&P Biotech ETF (XBI-N).

He likes their leadership in drug therapies. They have their HEP-C and diabetes franchises. It is an easy hold for him. They are well diversified. They are number 3 in animal health products. It has a PE of 15.5 times next year’s earnings. (Analysts’ target: $70.00).

(Top Pick Feb 22/17, Up 3%) It has traded in line with others. It is a wonderfully run company with a deep pipeline into diabetes and arthritis. They are in the forefront of immunotherapies for arthritis. They are the leaders. 15.5 times forward earnings. It should trade in a double digit PE. He likes it for leadership and diversification.

Pfizer (PFE-N) or Merck (MRK-N)? Neither. These companies did very, very well back in the last part of the last century. Patent protection laws really haven’t given them enough of a boost to be able to cover the enormous costs of developing and testing the drugs, and there is a high failure rate. The companies have made massive consolidations. They’ve tried to grow by spending less. He would look at the Bio-Pharma area instead, such as Biogen (BIIB-Q) or Celgene (CELG-Q). Financially, these companies are in good shape and are growing.

(A Top Pick Feb 22/17. Up 30.86%.) His thesis on this was that this was one of the leaders in immuno ecology.

(A Top Pick June 22/16. Up 16.19%.) The one thing he liked about this was the diversified pipeline, but really it was their immuno oncology drug that has been the front runner.

This company has the Mojo right now. Their drugs are definitely working. They have the first-line treatment in very specific lung cancer. Has a huge pipeline of trials going on with Keytruda. He continues to think immuno oncology is fast growing and that there is going to be further positive results coming out over the next couple of years. Dividend yield of 2.88%. (Analysts’ price target is $69.11.)

Merck (MRK-N) or Johnson & Johnson (JNJ-N) for safety? For safety, he would attribute that more to J&J. This one is a little more growth oriented. They are spending a lot on research and development and looking at growing their current product offerings. That’s great for a longer-term investor.

They’ve had great success in their drug for lung cancer. Lung cancer is about a 5^th of the demand for immuno ecology agents, but the balance of the market is 4X larger and consists of many indications. If you look at who is in the lead, it is more often Bristol-Myers (BMY-N) than this company. Merck had incorrectly been left behind on valuation, but that has now been lifted. Capital markets are looking at who wins and who loses in immunology as an absolute, but that is not the case, it is going to be a balance between the 2. This is a fine company and the valuation is reasonable, but he would rather be with Bristol-Myers. (See Top Picks.)

(Top Pick Nov 23/15, Up 14.41%) It has fulfilled what he thought. It has a multiyear pipeline of drugs still coming.

The difficulty that chemically based pharmaceuticals have had is basically with current legislation. They spend a lot of money developing drugs, and then they go off patent in a few years and they lose that revenue stream. If you look at the financials of all of the majors, basically it is a flat revenue picture, and any cash flow or earnings progress is made through cost cutting. He would prefer the bio side, such as Biogen (BIIB-Q), Celgene (CELG-Q), etc.

He likes the balance sheet and the income he is getting from this. They have a hepatitis C drug that is coming out as well as a great oncology drug. They have 26 phase 3 trials. Sees a slight increase in revenues over the next 2 years. Dividend yield of 3.22%.

(A Top Pick March 16/15. Down 5.13%.) Has an 8-9% organic growth over the next 5-year model. A lot of new drugs are coming on. Every time it dips to $50, he adds for new clients. Dividend yield of 3.5%. Looking for high $50-$60 in the next year.

One of the blue chip pharma companies out there that will do well if you buy it and tuck it away for a while in an uncertain world while it pays you a good divided. With people getting older and a bigger need for drugs, they have a lot of patents and a good pipeline.

Don’t sell because you’ve done well. They have a pretty good pipeline. If they continue to do good things, don’t pull the trigger, just watch it.