As soon as you saw that there was money to be made on COVID-19 vaccinations, did you jump on board and buy COVID-19 vaccine companies?
Why not expand your thinking beyond COVID-19? (However, it's important to remember that companies like Moderna have other promising vaccines in the pipeline, such as a cytomegalovirus vaccine (mRNA-1647), a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine for adults 60 and over (mRNA-1345) as well as its Zika vaccine (mRNA-1893).
If you're reluctant to put all your eggs in the vaccine basket, why not consider life sciences companies with a broader scope? Life sciences companies concern themselves with the development and manufacture of pharmaceuticals, biotech food and medicines (including food processing), medical devices, cosmeceuticals, and more.
It's truly mind-boggling what life sciences stocks have to offer, so let's dive into a quick explanation of life sciences stocks and suggest three stocks to add to your list.
Why Buy Life Sciences Stocks?
Think of life sciences stocks as spanning the entire range of sciences — biochemistry, biotechnology, botany, microbiology, molecular biology, physiology, zoology, and more. When you invest, a multitude of opportunities spread before you.
This wide range of stocks available to you includes companies that develop and market products such as pharmaceutical companies that develop medicines, medical device companies that manufacture and market surgical tools, biological products, diagnostic systems and so much more.
The global life science analytics market size was valued at $8.3 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.7% from 2022 to 2030, according to Grand View Research — just another great reason to consider life sciences stocks.
3 Life Sciences Stocks to Pop into Your Portfolio
Let's take a look at three stocks to add to your portfolio.
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., based in Waltham, Massachusetts, is a gargantuan, diversified life sciences company. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. has a complex portfolio of life sciences analytical instruments, specialty diagnostics, and laboratory products.
The company produces reagents, instruments, and consumables for research and diagnosis of infections and diseases as well as instruments, consumables, software, and services for production lines, research, industrial markets, and clinical laboratories. The company creates lyophilized immunodiagnostic reagent kits as well as calibrators, controls, and calibration verification fluids, allergy, and asthma tests, and EliA for autoimmunity tests, laboratory refrigerators, and freezers, ultra low-temperature freezers and cryopreservation storage tanks, water analysis instruments, laboratory plastics, and pharma services.
The company's products are distributed through a direct sales force, customer-service professionals, electronic commerce, third-party distributors as well as catalogs.
The company reported strong results in the fourth quarter due to growth in its base business and $2.45 billion in COVID-19 response revenue. Q4 revenue was $10.70 billion and GAAP diluted earnings per share (EPS) was $4.17. Q4 adjusted EPS was $6.54.
Full-year 2021 revenue grew 22% to $39.21 billion and GAAP diluted EPS increased 22% to $19.46. Full-year adjusted EPS also increased 28% to $25.13.
Abbott Laboratories, headquartered in North Chicago, Illinois, develops, manufactures, and sells health care products all over the world. It creates treatments for a long list of diseases, including pancreatic exocrine insufficiency, irritable bowel syndrome, biliary spasm, intrahepatic cholestasis, hormone replacement therapy, dyslipidemia, hypertension, hypothyroidism, influenza vaccine, and more.
It also develops and manufactures systems for extraction, purification, and preparation of DNA and RNA, cartridges for testing blood, testing for HIV, SARS-CoV-2, influenza A and B, RSV, strep A, and more.
The company also manufactures pediatric and adult nutritional products and heart devices for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases as well as diabetes care products.
The company continues to develop new products, including several in fast-growing markets. Q4 sales grew 7.2% and organic sales grew 7.7% in Q4 2022. Global COVID-19 testing sales helped boost Abbott Laboratories' growth to $2.3 billion in Q4. With the exemption of COVID-19 testing-related sales, Q4 sales growth of 9.6% and organic sales growth of 10.3%. Full-year 2021 sales grew 24.5% and organic sales grew 22.9%. In addition, full-year 2021 GAAP diluted EPS from continuing operations grew 58.2%, and adjusted diluted EPS grew 42.7%.
CRISPR Therapeutics AG, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, is a gene-editing company that innovates to create gene-based medicine for serious human diseases based on changes to genomic DNA.
The company's lead product candidate is CTX001, a gene-edited therapy for treating patients suffering from transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia or severe sickle cell disease. It also develops CTX110 which targets positive malignancies as well as CTX120, an investigational therapy targeting B-cells as well as CTX130 for the treatment of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies.
The company also develops regenerative medicine programs to treat muscular dystrophy, myotonic dystrophy type 1, and cystic fibrosis. The company has strong partnerships with Bayer Healthcare LLC, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, ViaCyte Inc., Nkarta Inc., and Capsida Biotherapeutics.
Cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were $2,379.1 million as of December 31, 2021, compared to $1,690.3 million as of December 31, 2020. Total collaboration revenue was $12.3 million for Q4 2021 compared to $0.2 million for Q4 2020 and $913.1 million for year-end 2021, compared to $0.5 million for the end of the year in 2020.
R&D expenses were $134.5 million for Q4 2021 compared to $82.4 million for Q4 2020, and $438.6 million for the end of the year, compared to $266.9 million for the year at the end of 2020.
Net loss was $141.2 million for Q4 2021 compared to $107 million in Q4 2020. Net income was $377.7 million at the end of 2021 compared to a net loss of $348.9 million at the end of 2020.
Ready to Dive into Life Sciences Stocks?
When you'd like to consider looking into life sciences stocks, seriously consider diving in! There's a lot of potential and possibilities in this sector.
Before you consider Thermo Fisher Scientific, you'll want to hear this.
MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Thermo Fisher Scientific wasn't on the list.
While Thermo Fisher Scientific currently has a "Moderate Buy" rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys.
View The Five Stocks Here
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