This Beaten-Down Pharma Stock Could Make a Turnaround in the New Year

Bristol Meyers’ pipeline includes Cobenfy and Milvexian. (Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg)

This article is an excerpt from “Amazon and 9 More Stocks to Buy for 2026,” published on Dec. 12, 2025. To see the full list, click here.

Bristol Myers Squibb could become the pharmaceutical industry’s turnaround story for 2026.

The stock, now around $51, is one of the worst performers in a group that has rallied off midyear lows. Shares are off 9% in 2025 after a series of drug pipeline disappointments, while major patent expirations, like one for cancer drug Revlimid, could cause earnings to fall 5% in 2026 and another 5% in 2027.

Bristol, though, trades for just eight times projected 2026 earnings, giving it the lowest P/E ratio in the drug sector, along with Pfizer. It carries a safe dividend yield of 4.9%.

At the current price, investors are paying little for Bristol Myers’ pipeline, led by Cobenfy, a schizophrenia drug being tested as a treatment for psychosis among Alzheimer’s patients, and Milvexian, a treatment of atrial fibrillation and strokes.

CEO Chris Boerner said on the third-quarter earnings call that he feels “even better” about the outlook given a sales shift away from drugs with patent expirations, the pipeline, and company’s financial discipline.

And if that doesn’t work, Bristol Myers, with a market cap of just over $100 billion, is small enough that it could become a buyout target.

Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com