Great time to buy Pfizer

Article Excerpt

Drug makers should see strong gains over the next few years, particularly due to the aging population. However, they still face challenges. For example, they must continually invest large sums to develop new drugs as patents expire on older ones. New drugs can also take years to win regulatory approval. As well, the pharmaceutical business is extremely competitive, and new, more effective products could come along at any time. To cut your risk, we recommend that you focus on leaders like Pfizer. The company recently lost the exclusive rights to its top-selling Lipitor cholesterol drug, but it has plenty of other promising products on the horizon. Its strong balance sheet is also helping it increase its research spending and buy other drug makers. PFIZER INC. $23 (New York symbol PFE; Income Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 7.5 billion; Market cap: $172.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.5; Dividend yield: 3.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.pfizer.com) is the world’s largest pharmaceutical drug maker…