Most of the time, the market demands a high price for companies that will soon experience booms. But there's not much point in buying a growth stock if it can't actually expand its operations for longer than a year or two as you'll be paying a high sticker cost without getting the benefit of share price appreciation.
Luckily, there are businesses that should likely see growth ahead, but aren't as expensive as some of their peers. Let's investigate two that are primed for success in both the next couple of years as well as over the next decade.
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1. Viatris
The long-term thesis for Viatris (VTRS 1.17%) rests on its drug pipeline, researching and developing generic copies of medicines that are off-patent, with the goal of getting regulators to agree that its generics are comparable to the branded drugs they seek to emulate. So far, Viatris has a myriad number of generics approved for sale, including for drugs you've probably heard of, like Zoloft, Viagra, Xanax, and Lipitor. And it's going to keep adding other heavyweights to its collection for the long haul.
Between 2024 and 2028, the drugmaker plans to bring in more than $500 million per year from its launches of new medicines, which means that its 2022 total sales of more than $16.2 billion will grow considerably. Its complex injectable generics, like Glucagon for hypoglycemic disorder, will be among the biggest growth segments, along with its new ophthalmology portfolio; each segment is expected to be worth more than $1 billion in annual revenue before the end of the decade.
In terms of how that new revenue will turn into earnings, management aims to deliver adjusted earnings per share (EPS) growth between roughly 14% and 17% annually after 2024. That puts Viatris solidly in medium-pace growth territory, considering that demand for generic drugs is unlikely to blast off anytime soon. Furthermore, at least half of its free cash flow (FCF) will be earmarked for paying out dividends and performing share buybacks, both of which should buoy its share price. At the moment, its forward dividend yield is around 4.1%, which isn't half bad.
The cherry on top with Viatris is that its shares are trading at a price-to-book (P/B) multiple of only 0.7. Effectively, that means its shares are priced at less than what the business would be worth if all of its assets were liquidated today, like they would be in bankruptcy proceedings. If the company can put its assets to use for practically any return beyond breakeven -- and it already is -- it means that the market is probably getting its valuation wrong. And that's one more reason that people who invest soon will likely see their shares rise over time.
2. 23andMe
You probably know 23andMe (ME -4.47%) thanks to its consumer genetic testing kits, in which people get a little sample collection kit in the mail, spit into a test tube, mail it back, and then get (some of) the more mundane secrets of their genomes revealed, like where their ancestors hailed from originally.
The company also offers health risk information too, allowing people to understand whether they're carriers of genes linked to developing hereditary conditions like sickle cell disease. While its testing operations are responsible for around 80% of its revenue, which totaled $67 million in Q3 of 2022, 23andMe is far more than a consumer testing business alone.
It also offers a subscription-based service that gives customers analysis of their genetic information, with new analyses being issued as the company gets the regulatory approval to do so. More importantly, it also hopes to use its gargantuan treasure trove of genetic data to become a star collaborator for biopharmas seeking to make new medicines. Juggernauts like GSK are already working with 23andMe in early-stage clinical trials.
The company is also doing a limited amount of oncology drug development on its own, with more than 50 programs in pre-clinical development. That means it could theoretically start to realize revenue from sales of a therapy it developed in-house before the end of the decade, though investors should realize that its pipeline programs are currently so early stage that the risk of falling short is very high.
Moving forward, 23andMe is seeking to grow its consumer testing business while also increasing the proportion of its revenue that it derives from research services. If management's thesis about the value of its genetic data hoard is true, it won't lack for growth opportunities as more pharmaceutical businesses look for an edge with their drug development efforts.
And given that its price-to-sales (P/S) ratio is currently only 3.9 in comparison to the biopharma industry's 4.2, you can pick up a few shares of this player for a slight discount, too.
