Will Camzyos Strengthen BMY's Cardiovascular Portfolio?

Bristol Myers’ (BMY) cardiovascular portfolio currently comprises blockbuster drugs Eliquis and Camzyos.

Blood thinner medicine Eliquis, for which BMY has a worldwide co-development and co-commercialization agreement with pharma giant Pfizer (PFE), is the biggest contributor to the top line.

Eliquis global sales totaled $3.7 billion in the second quarter, growing 6%, primarily due to strong demand. Sales in the United States grew 4% while international sales rose 12%.

However, Eliquis is slated to face generics later in the decade.

BMY has another drug Camzyos in its cardiovascular portflio. The drug was approved in 2022 for the treatment of adults with symptomatic New York Heart Association class II-III obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (obstructive HCM) to improve functional capacity and symptoms.

Camzyos has put up a stellar performance. The drug posted sales of $260 million, surging 86% due to robust demand. Sales in the United States amounted to $214 million, up 65%, driven primarily by increasing new patient starts. Outside the country, sales totaled $46 million driven by launch momentum in over 20 markets.

BMY expects that its strong revenue base and expansion of its prescriber base should fuel further growth for Camzyos despite entry of a potential competitor by the end of the year. Strong growth of Camzyos should help BMY fight a slowdown in Eliquis sales.

BMY has a promising candidate, milvexian, in its cardiovascular pipeline. Bristol Myers expects readouts for milvexian in acute coronary syndrome and secondary stroke prevention next year and for atrial fibrillation in 2027.

Competition for BMY’s Cardiovascular Drugs

A potential approval of Cytokinetics’ (CYTK) aficamten will pose competition for Camzyos. Aficamten is an investigational, oral, small-molecule cardiac myosin inhibitor.

The candidate is currently under review for the treatment of patients with obstructive HCM, with a target action date of Dec. 26, 2025. Cytokinetics targets a commercial launch in early 2026 upon potential approval.

Cytokinetics is also evaluating aficamten for non-obstructive HCM.

Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) Xarelto is also a Factor Xa inhibitor, similar to Eliquis.

However, JNJ is facing patent challenges for Xarelto in the United States. JNJ co-developed Xarelto with Bayer AG.

BMY’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of Bristol Myers have lost 16.5% year to date against the industry’s growth of 3.2%.

From a valuation standpoint, BMY is trading at a discount to the large-cap pharma industry. Going by the price/earnings ratio, BMY’s shares currently trade at 7.59x forward earnings, lower than its mean of 8.48x and the large-cap pharma industry’s 14.79X.

The bottom-line estimate for 2025 has moved up to $6.50 from $6.33 in the past 30 days, while that for 2026 has moved north to $6.07 from $6.03 in the same timeframe.

BMY 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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