We recently published a list of the 12 Most Oversold Healthcare Stocks to Buy Now. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IONS) stands against other most oversold healthcare stocks to buy now.
Are Healthcare Costs Rising in the US?
Healthcare costs and spending have been rising in the US. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported that healthcare spending in the US reached $4.9 trillion in 2023, up 7.5% from 2022. The healthcare sector accounted for around 17.6% of the US economy in 2023, reflecting a 17.4% rise from 2022. The two primary drivers of this growth are the rise in private health insurance and Medicare.
What Could Trump’s Tariffs Mean for the Healthcare Industry
Since more and more companies in the US are looking towards China for deals regarding the next promising molecule, whether in the obesity or cancer space, the impact of tariffs on this ongoing trend has become a subject of significant discussion in the healthcare industry. On February 7, Carlo Rizzuto, Versant Ventures managing director, appeared on CNBC’s ‘Fast Money’ to discuss the impact of tariffs on healthcare. Rizzuto believed that there are two ways in which tariffs could impact the industry. The first would be products innovated in China and brought over to the US or other markets. To understand how the tariffs would affect such trade processes, the industry would have to see how the tariffs are actually structured in the market.
Secondly and more tangibly, China is a massive center for contract research and manufacturing for the US healthcare industry. Therefore, anything that increases that cost is likely to make the market conditions more challenging. The healthcare industry is already under pressure in terms of investor sentiment, and an increase in cost is not going to help its functioning.
China and the US Healthcare Sector: What’s the Connection?
Talking about the immense role played by China in the pharma and healthcare space, Rizzuto said that a significant majority of healthcare companies are using a Chinese CRO or manufacturing partner in some way in the R&D process. It is thus a very significant part of how biotech or pharma companies operate in the country. This trend is widely prevalent, going from the smallest companies to the largest.
Simply speaking, it is not possible for healthcare companies to reshore all of the externalized R&D and manufacturing to the US, as the country does not have enough capacity to accommodate the transfer. It is thus very difficult to imagine how a reshoring of such magnitude could take place. The costs to undertake this feat can be calculated linearly with the amount of tariffs applied.
Delving deeper into the industry dynamics, Rizzuto termed the obesity space and, more broadly, the cardiometabolic domain as the single largest value-creation opportunity in the industry’s history. In a recently published article on 10 Best Drug Stocks to Buy Now, we discussed whether China is the next big thing in the pharmaceutical industry. Here is an excerpt from the article:
“Large American pharmaceutical companies are showing a distinct trend never seen before: they are increasingly looking for medicines in China. According to data from DealForma, as reported by CNBC, around 30% of Big Pharma deals with at least $50 million upfront in 2024 included Chinese companies. This was up from 20% the year before and almost 0% only five years prior. The surge in China deals is materializing when US policymakers and President Donald Trump are pursuing protectionist policies in technology, such as semiconductors and AI.
Our Methodology
We used stock screeners to compile a list of healthcare stocks that experienced significant declines over the past year. We then selected the 12 stocks with the highest analyst upside potential. We also added the number of hedge fund holders for these stocks, as of Q3 2024. We sourced the hedge fund sentiment data from Insider Monkey’s database. The list is sorted in ascending order of analyst upside potential. All data is as of February 18, 2025.
Why do we care about what hedge funds do? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
Ionis Pharmaceuticals (IONS): Among Top Insider Stock Buys And Sells In January
A scientist in a laboratory making a breakthrough discovery in biotechnology.
Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IONS) develops and commercializes human therapeutic drugs using antisense technology. It functions through the Ionis Core segment, which generates a pipeline of drugs through a novel drug discovery platform.
The company began a new chapter as a fully integrated commercial-stage biotechnology company with the recent launch of its first independent medicine, TRYNGOLZA, for familial chylomicronemia syndrome. Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IONS) expects three additional independent launches over the next three years, including donidalorsen later in 2025 for hereditary angioedema and olezarsen for severe hypertriglyceridemia in 2026, which is pending Phase 3 results in the second half of 2025.
Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:IONS) partners are also on track to launch four Ionis-discovered medicines over the same time period, including several that address broad patient populations. Analysts are bullish on the stock as it is continually advancing the next wave of potentially transformational wholly owned medicines, including ION582 for Angelman syndrome, which is on track to start Phase 3 development in H1 2025. The company’s strong commercial execution, recent achievements, and advancing pipeline position it to deliver growing value for stakeholders.
Overall, IONS ranks 5th on our list of the most oversold healthcare stocks to buy now. While we acknowledge the potential of IONS, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than IONS but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
