Zacks Industry Outlook Highlights: Bristol-Myers, Johnson & Johnson and Abbott Labs – Press Releases

Source: http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/18799/Zacks+Industry+Outlook+Highlights%3A+Bristol-Myers%2C+Johnson+%26+Johnson+and+Abbott+Labs+-+Press+Releases
Posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 | In Stocks to Watch

Contributed by: Zacks Market Commentaries (http://www.zacks.com/) -

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – April 3, 2009 – Zacks.com releases the latest Industry Outlook. Today’s interview is with senior analyst Jason Napodano, who talks about the Pharmaceutical Industry, including Bristol-Myers

(BMY), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Abbott Laboratories (ABT).

A synopsis of today’s Industry Outlook is presented below. The full article can be read at http://at.zacks.com/?id=2678.

We have three Buy-rated names within the large-cap space: Bristol-Myers (BMY), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Abbott Laboratories (ABT).

For growth funds, we recommend Bristol and Abbott. Bristol is expected to grow earnings by 12% CAGR through 2012. That’s tops in the industry. Growth is sustainable with a product suite heavy in attractive areas such as biologics, cancer and cardiovascular drugs. The late-stage pipeline includes two very promising candidates: apixaban and saxagliptin — both of which could be blockbusters if approved.

Growth at Abbott is being driven by blockbuster drugs such as Humira for rheumatoid arthritis and the company’s drug-eluting stent, Xience. Abbott has also been highly acquisitive over the past few years, most recently paying $175 million to pick up Ibis Biosciences, a subsidiary of Isis Pharmaceuticals, to enhance the company’s position in molecular diagnostics for infectious disease.

Our top-pick for value focused portfolios is Johnson & Johnson. The company is trading around 1X growth (PE/G) and sitting on $16 billion in cash. Much like Abbott, J&J has been highly acquisitive over the past year, most recently paying $1.1 billion to acquire medical product maker Mentor Corp. in December 2008. We expect that J&J will continue to look for acquisition targets in both pharma and medical devices throughout the year.

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The portfolios created monthly from 1988 through September 2006 exclude ADRS and are comprised of stocks that have the indicated Zacks Rank and were covered by at least two analysts at the time of the stocks inclusion in the portfolio. Starting in October 2006 and going forward, the portfolios are comprised of all stocks with the indicated Zacks Rank and do not exclude ADRs, which is more reflective of the list of stocks that customers will find on the Zacks web sites. 2007 returns are for the period of Jan 1 – Jun 30, 2007. These performance numbers have been audited from 1995 through 2003 by Autschuler Melovan, a division of American Express Financial.

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