The pharmaceutical industry can be a tricky investment.<\/p>\n
Remember Pfizer<\/strong> (NYSE: PFE)<\/span> back in 2020? Its stock price shot from around $33 in February 2020 to nearly $60 by December due to its rapid production\/approval of a COVID-19 vaccine. It was the<\/em> drug stock to own at the time.<\/p>\n Where to invest $1,000 right now?<\/strong> Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks<\/strong> to buy right now, when you join Stock Advisor.\u00a0See the stocks \u00bb<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Since then, demand for that vaccine has waned, and the stock has been on a downward ride. After plummeting in 2023, the price has moved sideways since early 2024. It now sits at around $28, lower than its pre-COVID price.<\/p>\n Demand for certain types of drugs can clearly be volatile. Plus, all drug companies face patent expirations when competitors can launch cheaper generic versions and steal market share. A drug patent is typically 20 years, but because drug development takes so long (often more than 10 years), much of a patent is used up before the drug comes to market. So, the effective market exclusivity is often just 10 to 12 years.<\/p>\n So if you want a pharmaceutical stock for the long term, 10 years or more, you need to look for companies that continue to fill their pipelines, ideally with the next blockbuster drug.<\/p>\n That’s exactly what Eli Lilly<\/strong> (NYSE: LLY)<\/span> has been up to.<\/p>\n It’s already been crowned the winner of the massive GLP-1 drug category, the class of medications that have proven extremely effective in lowering blood sugar levels and promoting weight loss.<\/p>\n And this week, Lilly announced a $2.4 billion acquisition of Orna Therapeutics, which is developing innovative drugs that can manipulate a patient’s genes and\/or cells to fight diseases — inside a patient’s body, not in a lab.<\/p>\n Just before the Orna announcement, Lilly announced it was paying $350 million upfront to collaborate with a Chinese biotechnology company to develop treatments for immune disorders and cancer. In January, it announced another billion-dollar deal with a German company to develop hearing loss gene therapies.<\/p>\n That kind of foresight is what can keep a drug stock moving higher in the long term.<\/p>\n Before you buy stock in Eli Lilly, consider this:<\/p>\n The Motley Fool Stock Advisor<\/em> analyst team just identified what they believe are the\u00a010 best stocks<\/strong> for investors to buy now\u2026 and Eli Lilly wasn\u2019t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.<\/p>\n Consider when Netflix<\/strong> made this list on December 17, 2004… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation,\u00a0you\u2019d have $414,554<\/strong>!* Or when Nvidia<\/strong> made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you\u2019d have $1,120,663<\/strong>!*<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>