Millions of Americans have rolled up their sleeves to get vaccinated against Covid-19, but one group is well behind: young adults.
Their reluctance is a significant part of why the U.S. missed the Biden administration’s goal of getting 70% of the adult population a first dose by July 4, and it is impeding efforts to develop the communitywide immunity sought to move past the pandemic and fend off Delta and other variants.
Now government health authorities are dialing up efforts encouraging 18- to 29-year-olds to get vaccinated.
The outreach will have to overcome the hesitancy of many young adults who don’t see the urgency given their relatively low risk of severe cases, are spooked by confusing information on social media and generally feel invincible, public-health experts say.
“It’s a problem because young people are out and about and social,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “They’re more likely to be interacting with more people than a 75-year-old” and could spread the virus if they aren’t vaccinated.
SYDNEY—Early data from Australia’s outbreak of the Covid-19 Delta variant suggest that two vaccine doses offer significant protection against severe illness and hospitalization.
Health authorities in Sydney, Australia’s most populous city that is currently under lockdown because of its Delta outbreak, said Saturday that no one who has received two doses of a vaccine needed to be hospitalized. Of the 47 people in the hospital, 37 haven’t been vaccinated, according to data provided on Saturday.
Four people who were in the hospital got one dose of the AstraZeneca PLC vaccine and one person got one dose of the Pfizer Inc. – BioNTech SE vaccine. The other five people received two Pfizer-BioNTech doses—but they are nursing-home residents who were admitted as a precautionary measure.
“Two doses of either the AstraZeneca or the Pfizer vaccine is incredibly effective at preventing hospitalization and death, which is an incredibly positive contribution,” said Kerry Chant, the chief health officer for New South Wales state, which includes Sydney.
The figures from Australia are in line with evidence from other countries, including the U.K. and Israel, showing that vaccines offer a high degree of protection against severe illness from the Delta variant. Recent data from Israel, though, showed the Pfizer vaccine is less effective at protecting against infection from the Delta variant when compared with previous strains, posing a challenge for health authorities as many countries ease coronavirus restrictions as vaccination programs progress.
At Cheyenne Regional Medical Center in Wyoming, health workers didn’t need genomic sequencing to tell them the highly contagious Delta variant had arrived.
Younger patients started coming in about two months ago with symptoms of Covid-19. Many progressed from mild illness to respiratory distress more quickly than patients treated earlier in the pandemic, said Sodienye Tetenta, a critical-care physician at the hospital. Nearly all were unvaccinated.
“We could see that this was not the Covid of last year,” Dr. Tetenta said.
The Delta variant is hardening a divide between people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and those who aren’t, prompting hospitals to brace for new case surges and health authorities to redouble vaccination efforts. Now the most common strain in the U.S., Delta is spreading as public life resumes at restaurants, sporting events and other public settings across the country.
Infections from the Delta strain contributed to a 10% rise in daily Covid-19 cases to around 12,600 late last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. That is still a 95% drop from peak levels in the U.S. in January. And hospital admissions tied to Covid-19 dropped 1% from a week earlier, the CDC said. Vaccines available in the U.S. protect against the Delta variant, studies have shown, and cases of breakthrough infection in the fully vaccinated appear to rarely result in severe illness.
TEL AVIV—Data from Israel suggests Pfizer Inc.’s vaccine is less effective at protecting against infections caused by the Delta variant of Covid-19 but retains its potency to prevent severe illness from the highly contagious strain.
The vaccine protected 64% of inoculated people from infection during an outbreak of the Delta variant, down from 94% before, according to Israel’s Health Ministry. It was 94% effective at preventing severe illness in the same period, compared with 97% before, the ministry said.
An Israeli official said Tuesday the health ministry findings released a day earlier were preliminary and based on data collected from June 6 through early July. The ministry didn’t release its methodology or the data on which its findings were based.
A spokesman for Pfizer said he couldn’t comment on an unpublished survey, but pointed to a recent study that showed the vaccine continued to offer protection against new variants.
The findings came as new cases of Covid-19 in Israel rose to a seven-day average of 300 on Tuesday from around 10 a day for most of last month. To prevent another surge in infections, the government late last month reimposed an indoor mask requirement and other measures after finding that about 90% of the new infections were likely caused by the Delta variant. Israel’s total population is around 9.3 million.
Doughnuts on a production line inside a Krispy Kreme Doughnuts store in Times Square in Manhattan.
Angus Mordant/Bloomberg
Krispy Kreme
led a group of six companies to the public markets on Thursday.
Besides the doughnut chain,
Acumen Pharmaceuticals,
D-MARKET Electronic Services & Trading,
Evercommerce,
Torrid Holdings,
and the
Glimpse Group
made their stock-market debuts.
So far this week, 17 companies, including those six, have listed their shares. There are no initial public offerings on tap for Friday because of the holiday weekend. On Wednesday, 10 companies went public, with
Didi Global,
the Uber of China, trading flat and closing at $14.14, 14 cents above its offering price.
On Thursday, Acumen Pharmaceuticals (ticker: ABOS) was one of the first to begin trading. The stock opened at $25.07 and closed at $20.10, up nearly 26% from the offering price.
The solid performance came after Acumen increased the size of its deal by nearly 20%. The biotech company, which is developing therapies to treat Alzheimer’s disease, collected about $160 million. It sold roughly 10 million shares at $16, the top of its $14-to-$16 range.
The Glimpse Group (VRAR), which develops and commercializes virtual and augmented reality software products, also opened. Shares kicked off at $11.75 and ended at $17.66, up 152% from its offer price. Glimpse delivered Thursday’s smallest deal. The company collected $12.3 million, after selling 1.75 million shares at $7, the midpoint of its $6-to-$8 price range.
Torrid Holdings (CURV) shares rose 15% from the offer price to close at $24.15. The direct-to-consumer retailer of plus-sized women’s clothes increased the size of its deal twice. It filed to offer 8 million shares at $18 to $21, which it boosted Wednesday to 10 million. It ended up selling 11 million shares at $21, the top of its expected range, raising $231 million. Sycamore Partners, the retail-focused private-equity firm, will own nearly 76% of Torrid after the IPO.
Krispy Kreme (DNUT), the most well-known of Thursday’s group, kicked off at $16.30 and ended at $21, up nearly 24% from the offer price. The doughnut chain increased the size of its deal by 10% but priced it well below its expected range to raise $500 million. Krispy Kreme had planned to offer 26.7 million shares at $21 to $24 each, but ended up selling 29.4 million shares at $17 each. JAB Holding, the European investment firm, will own about 39% of Krispy Kreme after the IPO
D-Market Electronic Services & Trading, or Hepsiburada (HEPS), jumped nearly 12% from its offer price to close at $13.43. Hepsiburada, which means “you can find anything you want here” in Turkish, is a leading e-commerce platform from Istanbul. The company raised $680 million after selling 56,740,000 American depositary shares at $12 each, the midpoint of its $11-to-$13 price range. Each ADS represents one class B ordinary share.
Lastly, EverCommerce (EVCM) stock opened at $20, but slipped back to close nearly 4% above its offer price at $17.60. EverCommerce’s IPO came in at $325 million after the comp[any sold 19.1 million shares at $17, the middle of its $16-to-$18 range. The company provides software for small and midsize service businesses.
Doughnuts on a production line inside a Krispy Kreme Doughnuts store in Times Square in Manhattan.
Angus Mordant/Bloomberg
Krispy Kreme
is leading a group of six companies to the public markets on Thursday.
Besides the doughnut chain,
Acumen Pharmaceuticals,
D-MARKET Electronic Services & Trading,
Evercommerce,
Torrid Holdings,
and the
Glimpse Group
opened for trading.
So far this week, 17 companies, including the current six, have listed their shares. There are no initial public offerings on tap for Friday because of the holiday weekend. On Wednesday, 10 companies went public, with
Didi Global,
the Uber of China, trading flat and closing at $14.14, 14 cents above its offering price.
On Thursday, Acumen Pharmaceuticals (ticker: ABOS) was one of the first to begin trading. The stock opened at $25.07, hit a high of $26.98, and recently changed hands in afternoon trading at $20.98, up 31% from the offering price.
The solid performance came after Acumen increased the size of its deal by nearly 20%. The biotech company, which is developing therapies to treat Alzheimer’s disease, collected about $160 million. It sold roughly 10 million shares at $16, the top of its $14-to-$16 range.
The Glimpse Group (VRAR), which develops and commercializes virtual and augmented reality software products, also opened. Shares kicked off at $11.75, peaked at $16.44, and recently traded at $12.95, up nearly 85%. Glimpse delivered Thursday’s smallest deal. The company collected $12.3 million, after selling 1.75 million shares at $7, the midpoint of its $6-to-$8 price range.
Torrid Holdings (CURV) began trading, with shares rising 15% from its offering price to $24.18 in afternoon trading. The plus-size, direct-to-consumer women’s retailer increased the size of its deal twice. It filed to offer 8 million shares at $18 to $21, which it boosted Wednesday to 10 million. It ended up selling 11 million shares at $21, the top of its expected range, raising $231 million. Sycamore Partners, the retail-focused private-equity firm, will own nearly 76% of Torrid after the IPO.
Krispy Kreme (DNUT), the most well-known of Thursday’s group, kicked off at $16.30, peaked at $20.17 and recently changed hands at $19.57, up 15% from the offer price. The doughnut chain increased the size of its deal by 10% but priced well below its expected range to raise $500 million. Krispy Kreme had planned to offer 26.7 million shares at $21 to $24 each, but ended up selling 29.4 million shares at $17 each. JAB Holding, the European investment firm, will own about 39% of Krispy Kreme after the IPO
D-Market Electronic Services & Trading, or Hepsiburada (HEPS), jumped 8% from its offer price and is trading at $13. Hepsiburada, which means “you can find anything you want here” in Turkish, is a leading e-commerce platform from Istanbul. The company raised $680 million after selling 56,740,000 American depositary shares at $12 each, the midpoint of its $11-to-$13 price range. Each ADS represents one class B ordinary share.
Lastly, Evercommerce (EVCM) also began trading. The stock opened at $20, hit a high of $21 and recently changed hands at $17.46, up nearly 3% from the offer price. Evercommerce’s IPO came in at $325 million after selling 19.1 million shares at $17, the middle of its $16-to-$18 range. The company provides SaaS software for small and midsize service businesses.
San Diego County health officials have cut ties with a local vaccine provider after allegations it had been handing out COVID-19 shots to ineligible patients.
One Medical Group, a membership-based healthcare practice out of San Francisco, operates offices across the country including here in San Diego County, and county officials said it was briefly permitted to distribute vaccines locally. But the county said that stopped once it discovered the group was acting as “a pay-for-membership facility.”
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“We learned [One Medical] was operating as a pay for membership facility and immediately reported them to the state,” said a spokesperson for San Diego County’s Health and Human Services Department.
One Medical’s Chief Medical Officer has vehemently denied any wrongdoing when it comes to the provider’s vaccine efforts.
“Any assertions that we broadly and knowingly disregard eligibility guidelines are in direct contradiction to our actual approach to vaccine administration,” a statement from Chief Medical Officer Andrew Diamond, M.D. read in part. “Recent media reporting about One Medical perpetuates dangerous public misconceptions about our COVID-19 vaccine protocols.”
An NPR investigation published on Wednesday found internal communications from One Medical staff members raising questions about the national provider not policing eligibility requirements closely for members seeking COVID-19 shots via the provider’s website. NPR found “patients who were disqualified from receiving the vaccine were nonetheless permitted to skip the line ahead of other high-risk patients.” (NBC 7 Investigates has not independently reviewed the internal communications reported by NPR.)
NBC Bay Area reports the San Francisco Department of Public Health, along with a list of other state and local health departments, have stopped allocating vaccines to the healthcare practice after receiving individual complaints that the provider vaccinated ineligible patients.
San Diego County officials told NBC 7 that they had permitted One Medical to distribute vaccines here locally “early on” in their vaccination efforts.
Officials said One Medical requested 2,000 vaccines, but the county only gave them 900 doses. The county emphasized that moving forward officials will no longer allocate vaccines to the healthcare provider.
San Diego County officials said they had reported One Medical to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) for further investigation.
One Medical’s downtown office in San Diego.
One Medical would not say how many of the 900 doses it allocated were distributed locally.
The healthcare provider’s Chief Medical Officer has defended its actions, telling reporters it did not “knowingly vaccinate ineligible patients.”
“Patients do not have to pay in order to get vaccinated at One Medical. As we did with COVID-19 testing, we’ve opened up access to the One Medical technology platform for patients, free of membership fees, to provide equitable access to vaccine appointments,” a statement read. “We routinely turn people away who do not meet eligibility criteria.”
One Medical went on to say that according to their data, 96% of individuals who were vaccinated by One Medical across the U.S. have eligibility documentation on file with the healthcare provider, and the remaining 4% “generally were vaccinated in accordance with zero wastage protocols.”
The spokesperson added that One Medical’s online platform requires patients to confirm their vaccine eligibility, with “numerous checkpoints in place — online at the time of appointment booking, prior to the appointment via a labor-intensive ‘schedule scanning’ process, and in-person verification at the point of care as needed– to mitigate abuse of our vaccine booking system.”
(To read One Medical’s full statement to NBC 7 Investigates, click here.)
According to One Medical’s website, the healthcare provider is “no ordinary doctor’s office,” offering patients a primary care membership for $199 a year. Subscribers are provided around-the-clock care via on-demand services, the website reads. Patients who do not want to pay the membership fee can also sign up for free services offered by the provider.
But when it comes to COVID-19 vaccinations, the provider said membership is not a requirement.
“The majority of individuals vaccinated by One Medical across the US are not our own annual dues-paying members but have been referrals from departments of health, including health care workers, nursing home patients, educators, and the homeless,” Diamond said.
When users try to sign up for vaccination appointments in San Diego, the One Medical website now states appointments are “Not currently available … We’re working with local health officials to get additional vaccines as quickly as possible.”
NBCWashington
Internal communications published by NPR found within One Medical’s walls, employees raised alarms for months over enforcing eligibility requirements for patients seeking vaccines.
NPR reported those communications included a staff member of One Medical who wrote, “I have questions about our approach of not requiring [patients] to bring proof of vaccine eligibility… A quick Google search indicates that this is not consistent with many states’ requirements. I am concerned about advertising an overly permissive approach.”
One Medical has contested several elements of NPR’s reporting and told the outlet it has since “fired several members of its clinical staff due to disregard for eligibility requirements.”
Diamond told NBC 7 despite the reporting, the provider is still committed to the community it serves.
“Although this type of reporting is disheartening to our team members who have worked tirelessly nights and weekends dealing with the complexities and challenges of the vaccine roll-out, we remain committed to serving our communities and hope that this report does not impede our ability to continue doing this vital work,” a statement reads.
But another state discovered problems with One Medical and stopped allocating vaccines to the provider for distribution as well.
The Washington State Department of Health told NPR it had received a complaint regarding One Medical on Feb. 10 and had “halted COVID-19 vaccine distribution to the company.”
Back in California, San Mateo and Alameda Counties also confirmed with NBC Bay Area on Thursday that they will no longer allocate vaccines to the provider. San Mateo County health officials said the move was due to a complaint it had received. Alameda County officials said they stopped allocating vaccines to One Medical “after learning the practice was planning to vaccinate more than their healthcare workers.”
In Los Angeles County, Public Health officials confirmed to NBC 7 they are continuing to work with One Medical, and to date have allocated more than 5,800 doses to the company.
LA officials said they too had received a complaint about One Medical and in response, issued the healthcare provider a warning.
“We received one report at the end of January that they vaccinated someone who was not a health care worker and Public Health followed up with them and had them explain their process,” a statement from Los Angeles County reads. “Public Health made it clear they must validate that the people they are vaccinating are HCW or those 65+ onsite at the time of appointment or else we cannot allocate them more doses. We have not received further complaints.”
The California Department of Public Health did not respond to requests for comment about any pending investigations.
A spokesperson for the state’s Medical Board confirmed One Medical Group, and its Chief Medical Officer Andrew Diamond have not faced any state disciplinary actions according to a review of its license history dating back to 2004.
Diamond told NBC 7 he has not been contacted by any state or local health departments regarding any complaints, or active investigations.
“We have not been informed by any of our department of health partners that there are current or pending investigations underway,” Diamond told NBC 7 on Friday. “As is the case with other large health providers, it is commonplace for a department of health to inquire about any concerns flagged to them. This is in no way unique or specific to One Medical.”
To learn more about vaccination efforts in San Diego County, including how eligible patients can book an appointment, click here for the county’s website.
Officials from Ohio said recently that 60% of nursing-home staff so far haven’t elected to take the vaccine. In New York,
Gov. Andrew Cuomo
said this month that state officials expect 30% of health-care workers offered the vaccine will ultimately turn it down. Two-thirds of the staff at a Florida hospital refused the vaccine this month, leaving so many unused doses that the facility started giving away shots to the general public.
The hesitancy among health-care workers concerns public-health officials who expected America’s front-line workers to serve as a model for others.
“Please get vaccinated,”
Anthony Fauci,
who is serving as President Biden’s chief medical adviser for the Covid-19 pandemic, said in a video message to health-care providers. “It’s important to protect yourselves, to protect your family, but as important, symbolically, as health-care providers, to show confidence in the vaccine so that other people in this country follow suit.”
In a survey of 1,563 respondents conducted in January by researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation, 79% of U.S. adults who haven’t yet been vaccinated say they would be likely to turn to a doctor, nurse or other health-care provider when deciding whether to get a vaccination.
Meanwhile, 28% of 128 health-care workers in the Kaiser survey said they want to wait and see how the vaccine is working for other people before getting it themselves. While they weren’t the most resistant group the foundation studied, their outsize influence over whether members of the general public would choose to get the vaccine concerns public-health officials.
Surveys of vaccine skepticism of broader populations have shown that people have become less hesitant as they see others vaccinated.
Some health-care workers say they’ve passed up the shot for altruistic reasons, believing that others should get it first. Several health-care systems said they have struggled to persuade female employees to get vaccinated due to a lack of data about the vaccines’ impact on pregnancy. Other health-care workers say while they want to encourage others to get vaccinated, when it comes to their own health, they are still wary.
“As I was getting my first shot, I asked the two nurses who were administering it to me how they felt when they got the shot. And they were on the side of waiting. That scared me a little bit, but I went through with it,” said
Charles Smith II,
chief financial officer at Vibrant Health in Kansas City, Kan.
At the system of clinics where Mr. Smith works, about 30% of the staff have decided against getting the vaccine to this point, according to Vibrant Health’s chief executive,
Patrick Sallee.
Mr. Smith said he felt uncomfortable with the speed of the process and the lack of long-term data, but news that a more highly transmissible virus variant was spreading made him take the leap. “There is an expectation for the health industry to lead other industries to say this thing is safe and lead by example,” he said. “I feel like I’m shaking the dice, really.”
Mr. Smith, CFO at a health-clinic system, and Dr. Jackson-Smith, a dentist, felt reluctant about a Covid-19 vaccine but decided to lead by example and get the shot.
Photo:
Katie Currid for The Wall Street Journal
Mr. Smith’s wife, Aniika Jackson-Smith, a dentist, said she also hesitated to get a vaccine because she doesn’t feel enough is known about their long-term effects. She said she finally decided to make an appointment to get the first shot in late January because she feels a responsibility as a health-care provider not to discourage others from getting it.
“My mind isn’t really changed,” she said. “But I guess in order for us to get past this, people are just going to have to take the vaccine or we’ll just be here forever.”
Heidi Arthur,
chief campaign development officer at the Ad Council, which has been running a large-scale public-service education effort about the Covid-19 vaccines, said getting health-care workers on board wasn’t originally part of the plan.
“It was surprising, the level of hesitancy,” she said.
Covid-19 Vaccine’s Last Mile
Instead of health-care workers lining up, the Ad Council found themselves pulling together a diverse group of leaders within the industry, including Dr. Fauci, to educate other health-care workers about the vaccines and address their concerns.
For Susan Izzo, an adult nurse practitioner in Connecticut, her initial hesitancy was because she felt her patients deserved the vaccine before her. Ultimately, her patients persuaded her to get the shots, she said, so that she could be healthy to protect them.
“I didn’t feel like it was my turn, even though as a health-care worker it is my turn. I would have gladly given up my vaccine to my 55-year-old patient who just had a lung transplant,” she said.
Deborah Burger,
a president at National Nurses United, the largest nurses’ union in the U.S., said many nurses felt information about vaccines that came out during the Trump administration was politicized and wanted to learn more so they could decide for themselves whether it was safe. Education and more information, she said, is increasing uptake among nurses.
Dawn Allen,
vice president of patient services at Huron Regional Medical Center in South Dakota, said at first less than 50% of their workforce chose to be vaccinated. After sitting down with staff to answer their questions, particularly around concerns of infertility, she said they are up to 76% of staff choosing to be vaccinated over a two-week period.
Still, some nurses say they have no intention of getting vaccinated.
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Cleon Charles,
a traveling nurse who has been working in Covid-19 hot spots throughout the pandemic, said she would never get the vaccine and has discouraged her daughters and parents from getting it, despite having had Covid-19 herself.
She cited a general mistrust of the pharmaceutical industry, among other concerns, and the death of baseball legend Hank Aaron, who publicly received the Covid-19 vaccine in early January. Medical officials say the baseball legend died of natural causes, but his death has been taken up by antivaccination leaders, including
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
, who called the death “part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly closely following administration of #COVID #vaccines,” on Twitter.
“I don’t want it,” Ms. Charles said. “I’ll take my chances and my vitamins.”
A freezer mishap resulted in a frantic effort to administer more than 1,600 vaccines overnight in Seattle, The Washington Post reported.
Hundreds of people stood in the street in their robes and pajamas after Seattle’s Swedish Health Services tweeted at 11 p.m. that it had vaccines that were about to expire within hours.
Workers administered all the shots on time, and no doses went to waste.
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Staff and volunteers at a Seattle health facility scrambled to inject 1,600 people with coronavirus vaccines that were rapidly expiring after a freezer failed, The Washington Post reported.
The freezer malfunction meant the Moderna vaccines would expire by the morning of January 29, so workers at Seattle’s Swedish Health Services rushed to vaccinate as many people as they could. Within the last 15 minutes, before the shots expired, workers administered dozens of shots mostly on the street. They reportedly injected the last shot at 3:45 a.m. on the dot.
At around 11 p.m. on Thursday night, the medical center tweeted an urgent message saying it had hundreds of available vaccine appointments in the next few hours before the doses expired. Hundred people showed up in their pajamas and robes, the NBC affiliate KING-TV reported.
Those in line were calling up people they knew to get them down to get a shot, the Post added.
“We were literally like …who can get people here? People started texting and calling and we were just counting down,” Kevin Brooks, the chief operating officer of Swedish Health Services told the Post. “Thirty-seven. Thirty-five. Thirty-three … People were showing up and running down the hall.”
Brooks told KING-TV that all available appointments were filled within 35 to 40 minutes.
The vaccines, which were being stored at Kaiser Permanente, began to thaw after a refrigeration issue impacting Swedish’s vaccines and those that belonged to UW Medicine, the Post reported.
Jenny Brackett, an assistant administrator at UW Medicine, said when she learned of the freezer mishap she was inspired by another recent instance where vaccines almost went to waste. Earlier that week, after getting stuck in a snowstorm, health workers in Oregon vaccinated stranded drivers before their remaining coronavirus vaccine doses expired.
While those vaccines were meant to go to other people, “the snow meant those doses wouldn’t make it to them before they expired,” the Josephine County Public Health Department, in Oregon said.
Brackett told the Post: “When I got the call they’re like, ‘It’s kind of like our snow moment.'”
Read more: Coronavirus variants threaten to upend pandemic progress. Here’s how 4 top vaccine makers are fighting back.
Brackett said she was going through the long line seeking out people who were 65 or older so they could be prioritized.
“I was a little worried that the line maybe would not be too thrilled,” she said. “You know, that I am letting others go first. But that wasn’t the response I had at all. Actually, the crowd kind of cheered.“
While not everyone who was vaccinated was in the state’s top priority category, the center said they would still be eligible to receive their second dose, and they’re just happy nothing went to waste.
Despite the prevalence of get-rich-quick schemes, those looking to grow their capital need not reinvent the wheel. Investing in stocks remains one of the best ways to do that. But not all securities are created equal. With an unlimited number of investment options on the market, picking the wrong ones could mean waving goodbye to your hard-earned money.
Investing in shares of great companies is the key to achieving your financial goals. With that in mind, here are three excellent stocks that should make you richer over the long-run if you buy today: Bristol Myers Squibb(NYSE:BMY), Veeva Systems(NYSE:VEEV), and Eli Lilly(NYSE:LLY). Here’s why each of these companies deserves a place in your portfolio.
BMY data by YCharts
1. Bristol Myers Squibb
Pharma giant Bristol Myers has a strong lineup of medicines, a rich pipeline, and a juicy dividend, all of which can help drive revenue and earnings higher while rewarding investors with dividend increases.
The company boasts at least eight blockbuster drugs, including multiple myeloma treatment Revlimid, which saw sales in the third quarter of 2020 jump by 10% year over year to $3 billion. Bristol Myers got its hands on Revlimid thanks to its 2019 acquisition of Celgene in a cash and stock transaction valued at $74 billion.The deal bolstered the company’s lineup with other products like Pomalyst, another multiple myeloma drug. During the third quarter, sales of Pomalyst increased by 17% year over year to $777 million. Bristol Myers also markets anticoagulant Eliquis, which brought in revenue during the third quarter of $2.1 billion, a 9% increase from the year-ago period.
Turning to Bristol Myers’ pipeline, the company has more than four dozen clinical compounds in development and at least as many ongoing clinical trials, including a raft of phase 3 studies. Newly approved products (or new indications for existing products) are likely to boost the drugmaker’s financial results in the coming years.
Despite its stock underperforming the broader market of late, Bristol Myers’ prospects look enticing. The company’s revenue and earnings are set to keep growing at a good clip. Three of its drugs, Revlimid, Eliquis, and Opdivo will be among the five best-selling drugs in the world in 2024, according to research firm Evaluate Pharma.
Bristol Myers also closed its latest acquisition in November: a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company called MyoKardia in an all-cash transaction worth $13.1 billion. MyoKardia’s leading pipeline candidate is mavacamten, a potential treatment for a chronic heart disease called obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Management believes “mavacamten has multibillion-dollar potential,” and it could be yet another long-term growth driver.
Lastly, with a dividend yield of 2.80% (compared to a 1.55% yield for the S&P 500) and a low cash payout ratio of 31.8%, investors can count on Bristol Myers to continue increasing its dividends. All these factors make this pharma stock an excellent pick for 2021 and beyond.
Image source: Getty Images.
2. Veeva Systems
Veeva Systems’ mission is to help companies in different sectors, including the life sciences industry, bring their products to the market faster and more efficiently while ensuring regulatory compliance. The company works with many of the top players in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors, including AstraZeneca, Merck, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Veeva’s founder and CEO Peter Gassner is a former executive of the cloud-based software giant salesforce.com. Veeva Systems and Salesforce have a long-standing partnership that allows the former to utilize Salesforce’s platform to run its cloud-based services.
Veeva’s list of products includes Veeva Vault, which helps drugmakers sail through the complex process of clinical trials. The company’s largest segment by revenue is subscription services. During the first nine months of its fiscal year 2021, which ended on Oct. 31, Veeva Systems reported $1.07 billion in revenue, representing a 34.8% year-over-year increase. The company’s subscription services revenue accounted for about 80% of its total revenue.
Veeva has an excellent retention rate for its services. For its 2017, 2018, and 2019 years, its retention rate was 127%, 121%, and 122%, respectively. On top of that, the company is developing newer products to better assist its clientele. Veeva Systems has branched out beyond the life sciences industry and into other regulated ones, namely, consumer packaged goods (CPG), chemicals, and cosmetics.
The company’s vision for these sectors is the same as it is in the life sciences industry. During the first three quarters of its fiscal year 2021, Veeva Systems generated about $30 million in revenue from these spaces, which represented nearly 8% of its total revenue.
It also has more than 60 customers from these three sectors, and the company sees a growing opportunity, especially given the changing environment of the CPG, chemical, and cosmetics industries brought about by the pandemic. Veeva Systems looks to be on a solid path to consistent revenue and earnings growth for the foreseeable future, and its stock price should continue to climb too.
3. Eli Lilly
Eli Lilly is another pharma giant with a rich suite of drugs. Some of the company’s top sellers include Trulicity, a diabetes medicine that had sales of $3.6 billion for the first nine months of 2020, a 22% jump. Other top performers include insulin product Basaglar and oral diabetes drug Jardiance. For the first nine months of 2020, revenue from the former rose by 5% to $842.3 million, while sales of Jardiance increased by 24% year over year to $840.3 million.
Lilly also has well over three dozen ongoing clinical trials. One of the company’s pipeline candidates is a potential drug for Alzheimer’s disease called donanemab. The company recently reported positive results from a phase 2 clinical trial for it.There are more than 5 million Alzheimer’s patients in the U.S., and there are no approved drugs that can treat the cognitive declines associated with it. While there is still a long road ahead for donanemab, investors would do well to monitor its progress.
It is worth noting that Biogen‘s aducanumab is currently being reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for this indication. Both aducanumab and donanemab look to treat the disease by removing amyloid-beta plaques from patients’ brains, which some professionals believe could help those who suffer from Alzheimer’s. But considering that an advisory panel of experts strongly recommended the FDA not approve the drug, Biogen’s prospects look unfavorable.
Eli Lilly recently beefed up its pipeline with its planned acquisition of Prevail Therapeutics, a biotech that focuses on developing gene therapies, in a cash transaction valued at around $880 million. Lilly already had a lot going for it, and this move only made its long-term prospects even more appealing thanks to potential drugs that target Parkinson’s disease and dementia, conditions for which there are no standard treatments. In short, adding shares of this pharma giant to your portfolio would be a great move for your money.
