Top Healthcare Stocks for February 2022

Healthcare, one of the largest and most complex sectors, is composed of a broad range of companies that sell medical products and services. The healthcare sector includes companies that sell drugs, medical devices, and insurance, as well as hospitals and healthcare providers. Some of the largest healthcare companies in the world include UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), Pfizer Inc. (PFE), and AbbVie Inc. (ABBV).

The healthcare sector has caught investors’ attention since some of these companies have received regulatory approval for drugs to treat COVID-19 and begun distributing vaccines. Other companies are rushing to develop and win approval for their own COVID-19 drugs while others are supplying products to test for and manage treatments of the virus.

Despite this, healthcare stocks as represented by the exchange-traded fund (ETF), Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLV) have underperformed the broader market. Healthcare stocks posted a total return of 12% compared to the Russell 1000’s total return of 15% in the year ending Jan. 20, 2022. The statistics in the table below are as of Jan. 20, 2022.

Here are the top three healthcare stocks with the best value, fastest growth, and most momentum.

These are the healthcare stocks with the lowest 12-month trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. Because profits can be returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and buybacks, a low P/E ratio shows that you’re paying less for each dollar of profit generated.

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• Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc.: Bio-Rad Laboratories makes products and systems used to separate chemical and biological materials, as well as to analyze, purify, and identify components. The company’s products are utilized in life science research, and in the chemistry and healthcare fields.
• Sage Therapeutics Inc.: Sage Therapeutics focuses on treatments for brain disorders. Specifically, it creates treatments for central nervous system disorders, including schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Jan. 11, 2022, the company detailed research and clinical findings for the investigational drug Zuranolone. Sage said that Zuranolone had demonstrated rapid improvement in depressive symptoms. That included a 40%-to-60% improvement in health domains, including mental health, vitality and social functioning.
• Organon & Co.: Organon is a pharmaceutical company that focuses on women’s health and biosimilars medicines, in addition established medicines. It develops and produces medicines for reproductive health, dermatology, heart disease, allergies, and other areas. On Jan. 5, 2022, Samsung Bioepis Co., Ltd. and Organon & Co. announced that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had accepted for review the supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for a citrate-free, high-concentration (100 mg/mL) formulation of SB5. SB5 was previously approved by the FDA under the brand name HADLIMA as a low-concentration formulation in July 2019. HADLIMA is used to treat several kinds of arthritis as well as other illnesses.

These are the top healthcare stocks as ranked by a growth model that scores companies based on a 50/50 weighting of their most recent quarterly year-over-year (YOY) percentage revenue growth and most recent quarterly YOY earnings-per-share (EPS) growth. Both sales and earnings are critical factors in the success of a company. Therefore, ranking companies by only one growth metric makes a ranking susceptible to the accounting anomalies of that quarter (such as changes in tax law or restructuring costs) that may make one figure or the other unrepresentative of the business in general. Companies with quarterly EPS or revenue growth of more than 2,500% were excluded as outliers.

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• Pfizer Inc.: Pfizer is a global biopharmaceutical company. It discovers, develops, makes, and sells a variety of biopharmaceutical products, including medicines and vaccines. On Jan. 10, 2022, Pfizer entered into a non-exclusive agreement with Acuitas Therapeutics, a company that develops delivery systems for mRNA-based therapeutics. Under the agreement, Pfizer will be able to license Acuitas’ lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery technology for up to 10 targets for vaccine and therapeutic development.
• Royalty Pharma PLC : Royalty Pharma buys biopharmaceutical royalties that generate revenue for the company. It partners with companies to help fund late-stage clinical trials and new product launches in exchange for future royalties. It also buys existing royalties from original innovators. On Jan. 7, 2022, the company announced that it will provide longterm capital to Cytokinetics Inc. (CYTK) to back two drugs that treat heart conditions. The money will support the potential commercialization of omecamtiv mecarbil, and further development of aficamten. Royalty Pharma also bought royalties on future worldwide sales of aficamten.
• Qiagen NV: Qiagen is a Netherlands-based company that serves customers in areas such as cancer therapeutics, instrumentation, genomics, and next-generation sequencing. The company’s specialties include utilizing sample and assay technologies, bioinformatics, and automation systems to isolate and prepare DNA, RNA, and proteins, among other materials.

These are the healthcare stocks that had the highest total return over the last 12 months.

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• Pfizer: See company description above.
• HCA Healthcare Inc.: HCA Healthcare Inc. provides healthcare services in 20 states in the U.S and in the U.K. For Q3 FY 2021 ended Sept. 30, 2021, net income attributable to HCA Healthcare more than tripled while revenues rose to $15.3 billion from $13.3 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. At that time, the company raised its 2021 guidance for adjusted EPS, EBITDA, and revenue. The company is estimated to report its FY 2021 results on Jan. 27, 2022.
• Anthem Inc.: Anthem provides basic and comprehensive insurance benefits for health dental vision, pharmacy and other areas such as life insurance. It provides benefits through a wide variety of network-focused managed care plans to large and small employers and other markets.

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