Should Investors Have These Top Health Care Stocks On Their Watchlist?
Health care stocks are one of the biggest winners to come out of this pandemic. It is one of the best sectors to invest in right now. The health care industry is one of the most complex and largest sectors in the world. They mainly comprise a plethora of companies that sell medical products and services. This would include the booming biotech sector and also companies that sell drugs, medical devices, and health care providers. Some of these top health care stocks have exploded in valuation over the last year itself. For instance, Turning Point Therapeutics (NASDAQ: TPTX) that have grown by over 120% in the last year. It is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that designs and develops novel small molecules, targeted oncology therapies.
Another example of a health care stock is Lemonade (NYSE: LMND) that has more than doubled in the last 6 months. It may come as a surprise that a challenger to health insurance has attracted such attention in the market. Nevertheless, Lemonade has managed to gain a foothold among millennial consumers especially. The health care industry in general still has a lot of potentials to grow given how it is always needed all around the world. Some estimates expect global health care spending to grow to $8.8 trillion in 2021. If you are looking for the next health care stock that has the potential to soar this year, could this list of top health stocks fit the bill?
Best Health Care Stocks To Buy [Or Sell] Now
- Novavax Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX)
- Aslan Pharmaceuticals Limited (NASDAQ: ASLN)
- Ocugen Inc. (NASDAQ: OCGN)
- Morphic Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: MORF)
Novavax Inc.
Novavax is a vaccine development company that is based in Maryland. In detail, it is a late-stage biotechnology company that promotes improved global health through the discovery, development, and commercialization of innovative vaccines to prevent serious infectious diseases. The company recently announced that its vaccine candidate for the coronavirus had an 89% efficacy and will seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval as early as April. NVAX stock trades at $238.29 as of 3:13 p.m. ET. It will also announce its fourth-quarter financial results after the market closes today.
Last week, Novavax announced that it has finalized a license agreement with Takeda Pharmaceutical. The collaboration will allow Takeda to develop, manufacture, and commercialize Novavax’s coronavirus vaccine in Japan. The company will transfer the technology for manufacturing the vaccine antigen and will supply its Matrix-M adjuvant to Takeda. Takeda expects to manufacture over 250 doses of vaccines per year for Novavax.
Also, the company announced a Memorandum of Understanding with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance to provide 1.1 billion cumulative doses of vaccines to the COVAX facility. With such exciting developments surrounding the company, could NVAX be a health care stock worth investing in right now?
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Aslan Pharmaceuticals Limited
Aslan Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage immunology and oncology-focused health care company that is developing innovative treatments. Its therapeutic areas target diseases that are highly prevalent in Asia such as atopic dermatitis and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). ASLN stock is up over 22% as of 3:11 p.m. ET as investors respond positively to its interim unblinded data for its leading ASLAN004 monoclonal antibody therapy.
ASLAN004 was shown to be well tolerated across all doses and showed improvements compared to placebo in all efficacy endpoints. This positions ASLAN004’s potential as a novel, first-in-class antibody that targets IL-13R with differentiated efficacy and safety profile in atopic dermatitis. The data is encouraging and provides a strong foundation for the company to advance its plans for a global Phase 2b study later this year.
If all goes according to plan, the company could be looking at profits for a disease that affects millions all over the world. Given all of this, do you think ASLN stock is worth adding to your portfolio?
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Ocugen Inc.
Ocugen is a biopharmaceutical company that develops and commercializes transformative therapies to treat blindness diseases. Specifically, its breakthrough modifier gene therapy platform has the potential to treat multiple retinal diseases with one drug. The company’s share has increased by a staggering 231% year-to-date. Its latest rally last month seems to come from a finalized agreement with Bharat Biotech of India to co-develop Bharat’s coronavirus vaccine for the U.S. market.
As part of the agreement, Ocugen signed on to have U.S. rights for Covaxin and it would be responsible for conducting clinical trials. It will also register and commercialize the vaccine in the U.S. market. If the vaccine is approved for use in the U.S., the company will share in the profit from sales of Covaxin with Ocugen getting 45% and Bharat receiving the remaining 55%.
This certainly plays well for the company that has already demonstrated long-term persistence of immune responses to multiple viral proteins and a broad spectrum of neutralizing capabilities. Do you think this makes OCGN stock worth investing in right now?
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Morphic Holdings Inc.
Morphic Holding, through its subsidiaries, develops oral integrin drugs for patients suffering from autoimmune, cardiovascular, and metabolic diseases. Furthermore, the company has decades of world-leading expertise and a unique integrin discovery platform.
It also believes oral drugs targeting the integrin protein family can transform the treatment paradigm for patients. MORF stock is up 129% as of 3:09 p.m. ET. This comes after the company announced its full-year 2020 financial results and positive interim results for its MORF-057 treatment.
MORF-057 is an oral small-molecule inhibitor of the α4β7 integrin that is in development for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Its data provide early clinical proof of concept for MORF-057 as an oral selective α4β7 inhibitor. This could pave the way for a new IBD treatment, which has a global prevalence of 396 cases per 100,000 persons annually. Given the positive interim results, will you consider MORF stock as a top health care stock to buy?