Big technology companies aren't always the portfolio winners that they're cracked up to be. Down by 28% over the past 12 months, shares of Amazon (AMZN 0.57%) are performing even worse than the market's decline of 13% in the same period. And with inflation and interest rate hikes threatening to drag the market down further, it's a hard time for growth stocks in general.
But a few businesses are outperforming both Amazon and the market despite the ongoing turbulence. Let's examine two such companies, both of which are biopharmas, to see if they might be better options for investment.
NASDAQ: JAZZ
Key Data Points
1. Jazz Pharmaceuticals
Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ 1.05%) is up 14.6% in the last 12 months, and the drugmaker is beating Amazon because its portfolio of medications on the market will be ramping up sales in the near future.
Its neurology and oncology medications tend to target small populations of patients where existing therapies aren't quite effective enough, and that means it stands to steal market share from competitors as more practitioners learn about its treatments.
By 2025, it plans to make at least $5 billion in annual revenue, which will require significant growth in comparison to its 2021 sales of near $3.1 billion. To get there, it'll need to expand its top line with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16% over the next few years, which is actually a bit slower than its CAGR of 13% from 2016 to 2021.
But with five new drug launches since 2020, it won't need to do anything too crazy to hit its target. As long as it can keep finding new patients for its cannabis-derived epilepsy drug Epidiolex and its narcolepsy therapy called Xywav, it'll be most of the way to hitting its target.
And it's launching its medications in around 10 international markets in total for 2022, building on its recent successes in entering the U.K and major E.U. markets like Germany and Italy. France is up next.
That's great news for investors, because continuing to beat Amazon stock doesn't require Jazz to be as large as Amazon; it only requires it to keep growing faster than Amazon in proportion to its size. Between the ramping up of revenue from existing therapies and being able to sell to new markets for the first time, the pharma is likely to outperform Amazon. And that's before even taking into account its five programs in phase 3 clinical trials that could also get commercialized over the next few years.
2. Corcept Therapeutics
Having a small portfolio of products isn't a barrier to growing faster than other businesses. For instance, Corcept Therapeutics (CORT +1.75%) makes only one drug, Korlym, which is used to treat Cushing syndrome, a hormonal disease, and it's crushing Amazon stock handily over the last year, with its shares rising by 19%.
Korlym and its pipeline programs are all focused on one biological molecule, cortisol, and that makes Corcept a biopharma specialist.
NASDAQ: CORT
Key Data Points
Cortisol is implicated in several diseases, and the company is developing medications that can treat a diverse set of conditions like ovarian cancer, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and even amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Future projects could span other areas like diabetes, osteoporosis, and even post-traumatic stress disorder. A trio of its programs are in phase 3 clinical trials, and getting any one of those commercialized in the next few years would easily juice revenue for many quarters afterward. With its subject-matter expertise, there's reason to believe that Corcept will be able to come up with a few innovative therapies that could work when other options don't, enabling it to find room even in crowded therapy markets.
This year, management expects to make between $400 million and $430 million in revenue, a decent improvement over 2021's $366 million. To beat Amazon, it'll need to keep growing faster, and that shouldn't be a problem. In the last five years, its quarterly free cash flow (FCF) has risen by 66%, whereas Amazon's has crashed into outflows of more than $6.7 billion.
In short, Corcept has done well in accessing the 20,000 patients diagnosed with Cushing syndrome in the U.S. each year. And if it can keep penetrating that market while its pipeline programs reach maturity, it won't have any problem growing faster than the e-commerce giant.
