Biotech giant Amgen (Nasdaq:AMGN) may not be considered a pharmaceutical company yet, but the market is certainly treating it like one. Whether you consider the P/E ratio, the price-book, price-cash flow, or EV/EBITDA ratios, Amgen trades more or less in line with the likes of Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), Lilly (NYSE:LLY) and GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) than Celgene (Nasdaq:CELG) or Genzyme (Nasdaq:GENZ).
This would be all well and good if Amgen was just another typical big-cap pharmaceutical company. Though Amgen does have some issues in common, I think the differences are more significant than the similarities. Most significantly, it looks as though the market is assuming that Amgen is going to grow at a pace similar to most of these large companies (which is to say, "not much"), and this is where the stock could ultimately outperform.
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