Will EXEL's Share Repurchase Program Boost Value for Investors?

Exelixis (EXEL) has been consistently repurchasing shares in the past couple of years to boost shareholders’ gain.

Share repurchases reduce the number of shares outstanding, thereby boosting the bottom line. This, in turn, can drive up share value over time.

In August 2024, EXEL’s board of directors authorized a stock repurchase program to buyback up to $500 million of the common stock before Dec. 31, 2025.

In February 2025, the board authorized the repurchase of up to an additional $500 million of common stock before the aforementioned date.

As of June 30, 2025, Exelixis had repurchased $796.3 million of the company’s common stock, under these programs. The average repurchase price was $36.69 per share.

EXEL had initiated the first stock repurchase program in March 2023. Since then, the weighted-average diluted common shares outstanding decreased from 326.3 million to 284.4 million as of June 30, 2025.

At the end of the second quarter, EXEL had cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities of $791 million. EXEL’s strong existing cash balance suggests that the company should successfully complete its share repurchase target by the end of the year.

Many large pharma/biotech companies like Regeneron (REGN) and Novartis (NVS) are also resorting to share buybacks to boost their investors’ value.

During the second quarter, REGN repurchased shares for $1.070 billion. As of June 30, 2025, Regeneron had $2.814 billion remaining under its existing share repurchase programs.

During the first half of 2025, Novartis repurchased a total of 48.8 million shares for $5.3 billion under the $15 billion share buyback (announced in July 2023 and completed on July 1, 2025).

Novartis has also initiated a new buyback program of up to $10 billion, expected to be completed by 2027-end.

EXEL’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of the biotech company have gained 13.4% year to date compared with the industry’s growth of 3.6%.

From a valuation standpoint, EXEL is expensive. Going by the price/sales ratio, its shares currently trade at 4.07x forward sales, higher than its mean of 3.64x and the biotech industry’s 1.58x.

The bottom-line estimate for 2025 has risen from $2.64 to $2.68, while that for 2026 has decreased to $3.09 from $3.13 over the past 30 days.

EXEL currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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