With relevance to current life science companies, the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, often labelled “the father of modern medicine,” advised almost 3,000 years ago “healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” That counsel rings especially true for a pair of ostensibly beleaguered drugmakers, Pfizer and Merck, both of whose stocks have been battered this week despite reporting strong earnings, continuing a prolonged stretch of share underperformance for both companies even with paradoxically good revenues
These two iconic pharmaceutical firms have good company as virtually the entire pharmaceutical industry outside of the weight drug titans, GLP-1 companies, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, are trading at near-record low valuations. But while they face different and unique challenges, both Pfizer and Merck stand out for the extent to which the investment community may be uniquely underappreciating their prescription for future success. For both drugmakers, investors seem to be addicted to bad news, but some good news could be exactly the antidote the doctor ordered.
