2 Top Stocks to Buy in March and Hold Forever

If you're looking for more great stocks to add to your portfolio this month, you don't have to look far to find quality businesses with compelling growth stories. Provided you have the capital on hand to invest right now that you can put into your portfolio and leave alone for the next few years, even the current choppy waters of the market are still presenting investors with wonderful opportunities to buy great companies. 

Here are two names to consider adding to your portfolio in the near future and holding for years. 

1. Vertex Pharmaceuticals 

Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX -1.02%) has remained the premier presence in the cystic fibrosis treatment space for over a decade now since its first therapy to treat the underlying factors that cause the genetic disease was given the green light by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Since that time, Vertex has seen its portfolio of CFTR modulators -- the class of drugs that work to correct the root cause of cystic fibrosis -- expand to four approved therapies, and it remains the only company with approved CFTR modulators on the market at the time of this writing. 

While its portfolio of top-selling therapies faces consistent and growing demand -- management estimates that as many as 20,000 cystic fibrosis patients could take its CFTR modulators but aren't yet doing so -- Vertex is looking toward future sources of growth to spur its business and financials forward in the years ahead.

Its current pipeline includes a non-opioid drug candidate for acute pain, a cystic fibrosis drug for patients who can't take CFTR modulators (management estimates that more than 5,000 patients fit this category), and a potential one-time functional care for two rare blood disorders, for which it's in the process of undergoing regulatory submissions.  

The company is also wading into the lucrative diabetes care market. Last year, Vertex finished its acquisition of ViaCyte, a company that is working on stem cell therapies to treat type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The cystic fibrosis treatment market is set to reach a valuation of $32 billion by the year 2027, achieving a compound annual growth rate of more than 24% from its 2019 valuation of about $5 billion.

However, the broad opportunities within this space are just the tip of the iceberg for the long-term potential that Vertex appears to have as it continues to explore lucrative yet underpenetrated segments of the rare-disease drug market. For investors searching for a healthcare stock in which to retain a multi-year, buy-and-hold investment, Vertex looks like a compelling choice to consider. 

2. DexCom 

DexCom (DXCM 2.89%) has constructed a robust revenue-producing and profitable business in the lucrative diabetes care market with its industry-leading continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices. The company recently saw the latest generation of its flagship CGM device, the G7, receive the green light from the FDA, and launches of the product are already underway in key global markets, including Europe and Asia. 

The G7 device is being marketed as having the fastest warmup time of any such device to date, at only 30 minutes total. It's also 60% smaller than its predecessor, DexCom's top-selling CGM, the G6. Like the G6, the G7 CGM doesn't require any finger sticks, and it sends readings to the wearer's compatible device every five minutes in order to enable seamless tracking of blood sugar levels and trends. Although the launch is only in its early days, management said in the 2022 earnings call that "97% of initial users surveyed have found the G7 easy to use."  

Moreover, as of the end of 2022, 1.7 million people around the globe were wearing a DexCom device, an increase of an incredible 450,000 lives compared to 2021. DexCom's revenue shot up 20% in 2022, while earnings surged nearly 60%. Given the ongoing expansion of public and private coverage for current and prospective CGM wearers -- including a recent U.S. ruling extending G7 coverage to Medicare beneficiaries who meet eligibility -- DexCom still has a broad, growing addressable market to tap into today.

There are millions of type 1 and type 2 diabetics around the globe who could benefit from such a device but are not yet wearing one. And the prevalence of diabetes is on the rise. There's also data to indicate that pre-diabetics may benefit from wearing CGMs. In short, there's a lot of growth runway left for DexCom here, and investors who stay with this stock for the long haul could tap into this growth story, too.