Will Celgene Become the Next $100 Billion Biotech Stock?

The company reported its third-quarter earnings Thursday morning of $0.97 in earnings per share and $1.98 billion in revenue against Thomson Reuters consensus earnings estimates of $0.95 in earnings per share and $1.96 billion in revenue. Celgene reported a 37% increase in profit from increased sales of its multiple myeloma medicine Revlimid. The company posted a net profit of $508 million compared to $372 million in the third quarter of the previous year.

Celgene also went out and raised its outlook for 2014 earnings to the range of $3.65 to $3.70 in earnings per share from $3.60 to $3.65 in earnings per share. It also said that revenue for the 2014 full year was expected to exceed its previous forecast of $7.6 billion.

Analysts will likely be tweaking their estimates higher after this report. With biotech being a hotbed for investors, one has to wonder if price targets will be raised in the week ahead as well. Two recent analyst calls were seen as follows:

• BofA Merrill Lynch initiated its coverage of Celgene with a Buy rating and price target of $112 (Oct. 1).
• RBC Capital Markets upgraded Celgene to an Outperform rating and raised its price target to $115 from $100 (Sept. 29).

Now, what about where that $100 billion market cap comes into play? Nomura has a Buy rating for Celgene and the highest price target among analysts of $128. The highest price target from this group would put the company at just over $100 billion, but we would note that Celgene shares would have to rise roughly 25% to hit this mark. Celgene currently has a market cap of roughly $80 billion.

Shares of Celgene were recently trading up almost 6% at $100.40. With an hour and a half left in trading the company has moved over 7 million shares. The company has a consensus analyst price target of $105.03 and a 52-week trading range of $66.85 to $100.91.

And to think that the markets were nearing a panic just a week ago. Had we asked you about this a week ago it might have sounded like blasphemy. Celgene shares saw a selling climax low last week of $83.16 — and now the stock is over $100!.