Gambling on Biotechs—and Pfizer | Barron’s

To the Editor:

Pfizer has a lot of good and bad points, as mentioned in your cover story “Pfizer Is Moving Beyond Covid. Why Its Stock Is a Buy.” (Feb. 3). But the hardest one to deal with for all biotechs is that they are a gamble. So much is dependent on their new drugs becoming winners and income producers. At Phase 2 or 3 trials, many are shown to have little positive effect. So, while Pfizer does have a deep lineup of drugs, it still has to get past those trials. For that reason, it was probably wise for Pfizer to stack the odds in its favor by buying drugs that already are producing revenue to offset the loss of their patents.

Meanwhile, collecting a decent dividend while you wait and adding to your position over time isn’t exactly a bad thing.