David Wainer

The pharmaceutical company’s stock is relatively cheap, representing an opportunity for patient value investors.

For pharma companies, the goldilocks earnings scenario is a strong quarterly beat paired with a promising pipeline of innovative drugs. Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis reported another solid quarter on Tuesday, raising its guidance for the third time this year. One red flag was the company’s announcement that it is writing down $800 million from the $2.9 billion acquisition of biotech MorphoSys.

Eli Lilly had a bad quarter, with sales of GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound missing analyst estimates. The disappointment led to a 15% plunge in Lilly’s shares on Wednesday morning, erasing more than $100 billion in market value.

Eli Lilly had a bad quarter, with sales of GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound missing analyst estimates.

The next few months will be crucial for obesity players Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Amgen.

It’s too early to know if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will have an important healthcare role in a second Trump administration, but investors in vaccine stocks are already taking cover. Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, could “do pretty much what he wants” in his administration. In a video posted last week, Kennedy said that Trump had “promised” him control of several health-focused governmental offices, including Health and Human Services.

Few would think professional sports leagues and the drug-development industry have much in common. When it comes to building up a pipeline, though, there is a striking similarity with valuable insights for executives on the prowl for deals. The news sent Bristol-Myers Squibb which recently won approval for a rival schizophrenia treatment, surging 10.5%.

Donald Trump’s nomination of vaccine-skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services is sending shockwaves throughout the broader pharma industry, beyond vaccine makers such as Moderna and Pfizer. One area of heightened focus is the fast-growing market for obesity and diabetes drugs like Mounjaro and Ozempic. Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are seeking to broaden insurance coverage for such drugs and are conducting studies to show that the benefits extend beyond weight loss to conditions such as cardiovascular disease and sleep apnea.

The makers of Ozempic and Zepbound are fighting to stop compounded copies of their drugs. But it’s unclear whether they can ramp up production enough.

The vaccine skeptic may find it hard to enact earth-shattering changes to American healthcare