For investors, the pharmaceutical industry and related groups is like the oil sector in that it offers a vast array of appealing stocks with a worldwide market that is growing.
These range from “Big Pharma” stocks such as Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) and Merck (NYSE: MRK) to promising small caps such as CytoDyn Inc (NASDAQ: CYDY), a biotechnology firm. While Eli Lilly and Merck have many products in the pipeline, CytoDyn is focused on an injection that replaces the need for drugs for patients with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). That is a huge potential market that spans the world.
What makes CytoDyn even more appealing at this time is its clinical development strategy with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for PRO 140, its lead product candidate.
Like so many small cap energy firms such as Mondial Ventures (OTC: MNVND) competing so well with more upside than Big Oil stocks such as ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), CytoDyn has advantages due to its size. Big Pharma stocks will only go after products that have huge markets, no matter how lucrative the space for more defined items. That leaves highly profitable niche areas to the benefit of CytoDyn and its shareholders.
But Big Pharma delivers the Big Dividends associated with Big Oil.
At present, the average dividend yield for a member of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is just under 2 percent. The dividend yield for Merck is more than 50 percent higher at nearly 3.2 percent. For Eli Lilly, the dividend yield is 3.35 percent. Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PZE) pays its shareholders a dividend stream of income that comes in at 3.26 percent. Big Pharma also has a history of dividend growth, too.
Stocks in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector have done well over the last year.
CytoDyn is up double digits for the last year of market action. Over the same period, Pfizer has surged more than 15 percent. Merck has climbed by more than 30 percent. For Eli Lilly, the gain has been nearly 16 percent just for 2014.
The dividend income takes the total return even higher for long term investors.
