When Key Biotechs Have Low P/E’s & Value Screens (AMGN, BIIB, CEPH, CBST, GENZ, PDLI)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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It usually takes an event or a series of events for biotech stocks to ever look cheap compared to the overall market or even to sub-sectors within health care.  They generally trade at higher multiples of revenues and with high P/E ratios, assuming they even have real sales-generated revenues and earnings.  But in today’s climate there are many of the large key biotech stocks that are now trading with market-discounts on the P/E ratios and on multiples of revenues as valuation metrics.  We ran a full screen for BioHealthInvestor.com and some of the key names that came up with low P/E and revenue multiples were Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN), Biogen Idec Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB), Cephalon Inc. (NASDAQ: CEPH), Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CBST), Genzyme Corporation (NASDAQ: GENZ), and PDL BioPharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: PDLI).

There are generally some reasons that have gotten these to cheap screening levels, but some of these are showing significant value for a sector that usually commands a high-premium to most sectors.  Amgen has recovered substantially from its woes, and Biogen has as well.  Genzyme’s troubles allowed it to make the screen with some key caveats, and the valuation screens elsewhere showed that Cephalon, Cubist, and PDL are worth a look.  All of these companies were also well above our screening threshold of $400 million in market cap and average volume of 250,000 shares or more.  These all came in above $1 billion in market cap and most never see under 1 million shares per day in average volume.

The full story is available at BioHealthInvestor.com.

-The 24/7 Wall Street Team

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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