Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Second quarter revenue climbed 12 percent to 3.33 billion dollars, with sales outside the United States growing even faster at 14 percent. Management raised full year guidance to between 13.1 and 13.2 billion dollars, and the company holds 13.6 billion dollars in cash and securities.

The newer products are finally scaling. CASGEVY, their gene editing therapy, grew 151 percent from a year ago to 76 million dollars, and JOURNAVX, the non-opioid pain pill, more than quadrupled to 50 million dollars with roughly 535,000 prescriptions filled in the quarter. A kidney drug, povetacicept, has an FDA decision date of November 30th.

The stock carries a market value near 119 billion dollars while profit grew only modestly, with net income of 1.1 billion dollars this quarter versus 1.0 billion a year ago. A lot of future success is already baked into today's price.

Cystic fibrosis still drives nearly all the money. Non-CF products are guided to just 500 million dollars or more of the 13.1 billion dollar full year target, so a stumble in the core franchise would hurt badly. Spending is also climbing, with quarterly operating costs rising to 1.6 billion dollars.