BearishPFEPfizerPfizerLLYEli LillyEli LillyMRKMerckMerck

10/2/2025 on

"Let's make a deal..." and Big Pharma is up ~5% today (NYSE:DRG). Lilly up like $60B. Merck $18B. Pfizer $13B. I'd guess up $120B+ in market cap for the Top 10 alone. Staggering scale. The industry was oversold (historically low P/E), but call me skeptical... waiting for the next shoe to drop. The "deal" (or "deals") being discussed appear to drop prices here in the US, but don't solve the real problem: the US has subsidized global R&D because the EU/UK/JPN don't pay enough for new medicines. Those countries need to step up to make innovation model work.

NeutralPFEPfizerPfizerABBVAbbVieAbbVie

9/9/2025 on

Pfizer R&D has been great at discovering interesting assets and, upon portfolio prioritization changes, moving to out-licensing them… for other pharma to then value (TL1A at Telavant/Roche, IL6 with Tour/NVS, CNS with Cerevel/ABBV, desmoid with Springworks/MerckKGA). More than $20B of M&A value just in those four, holding aside post-M&A challenges. The bi-directional flow of innovation in/out of different corporate contexts helps put assets into the the hands of the right product champions

PFEPfizerNeutralPfizer

9/9/2025 on

Novartis acquires Tourmaline for $1.4B for pacibekitug, an IL-6 mAb. Fun fact: pacibekitug is yet another fully human mAb discovered from Medarex UltiMAb transgenic mouse platform. In 2004, Pfizer did a 10-year mAb discovery partnership with Medarex, which generated the anti-IL6 clone. The IgG1 isotype of the original clone was switched by Pfizer to IgG2 to reduce Fc receptor binding. Clearly the UltiMAb is one of the most prolific Ab platforms ever (as an aside, probably more FDA approvals than any other Ab platform). I wonder if Novartis now pays BMS royalties... Pfizer licensed pacibekitug to Tourmaline, and is owed royalties. Some of those might be pass-thru royalties to Medarex, now BMS, since its acquisition in 2009. Our industry is such a wonderful tangled web of connections.

NeutralPFEPfizerPfizerMRNAModernaModerna

1/13/2025 on

Amazing round trip for $MRNA. In March 2020, it was trading around $30 just as the COVID lockdowns went into affect Today it's back near $30, almost five years and billions of vaccine sales later... (Same round trip for $PFE too, fwiw) https://t.co/WyqRxKONPo