Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK)'s CEO Thinks He's Got $50 Billion Of New Drugs, Says Jim Cramer

We recently published 14 Stocks Jim Cramer Discussed As He Talked About Record Bitcoin Price. Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) is one of the stocks Jim Cramer recently discussed.

Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. The firm has benefited from its KEYTRUDA cancer drug over the past couple of years. However, Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK)’s shares have lost 16% year-to-date, primarily on the back of weak earnings reports and worries about the firm’s GARDASIL drug. Cramer discussed Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK)’s drug portfolio and pointed out that the firm can benefit from a robust pipeline, particularly after the acquisition of a COPD company:

“Yeah, I talked to Rob this morning, really liked this. He thinks he’s got about 50 billion dollars worth of new drugs, which would therefore make it so you should stop worrying about the Keytruda patent expiration in 2028. I am with Rob. I think this COPD is a really important, another important franchise for them the alternative use steroids. And we’ve all be discovering that if you have trouble using steroids, one it becomes less effective over time, and two, the side effects are much worse than people realize. So I think this is a first in class, novel, compound that will make it so, see Merck’s up because we’re starting to get less worried about the expiration. And you know, Rob, I appreciate the fact that Rob is doing the old days, which is you go look at what the younger companies are doing and then you buy them. . .I like this acquisition very much.”

However, after Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK)’s Q1 report, Cramer was worried about the firm:

“This is an earning season so far where a lot of the big ones that look like they’re just shockingly bad or disappointing—everyone knew. I mean, Merck reported a quarter, I think we all kind of knew that Keytruda had slowed down a little bit. We knew that there were some Gardasil problems.Winrevair, drug that they bought—pulmonary arterial hypertension—I thought it was terrific, 280 million. So I think that this is an example where you can just say, oh my god, damn, Merck down almost 40%. I got to—I, I, I got to take a hard look at it.”

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.