2 Under-the-Radar Biotech Stocks Worth Buying for the Long Term

Vertex and Mirum both posted strong operational updates, with Mirum revenue rising 54% to $521.3M in 2025 and Vertex revenue reaching a record $12B, up 9%. Mirum is nearing profitability with EPS loss narrowing to $0.45 from $1.85 in 2024, while guiding 2026 product sales to $630M-$650M and expanding its pipeline via the $820M Bluejay acquisition. Vertex strengthened its cystic fibrosis moat with FDA label expansion for Trikafta and Alyftrek, supporting 2026 sales guidance of $12.95B-$13.1B.

Analysis

VRTX is the cleaner compounding story: the market is still pricing it like a mature franchise, but the extension of its treated population reduces the probability of a near-term growth air pocket and should support a higher terminal multiple for the core cash engine. The second-order effect is that every incremental dollar from non-CF assets now has a lower strategic hurdle rate; that matters because it gives management more room to invest in adjacent platforms without pressuring margins or capital returns.

MIRM is a classic “inflection before proof” setup. The near-term rerate is less about current sales and more about whether the next 12-18 months validate that management can turn a one-product commercial footprint into a multi-asset hepatology platform. The biggest hidden upside is operating leverage: if the new asset lands, the same specialist call points can absorb materially more revenue without a proportional increase in SG&A, which can compress the timeline to durable profitability faster than the street is modeling.

The main risk on both names is that biotech optionality tends to get monetized early and then de-rated if data or uptake disappoints. For VRTX, the consensus may be underestimating how much the market will punish any slowdown in the non-core pipeline once the CF base is treated as a utility-like asset; for MIRM, the opposite is true—the market may be over-discounting the probability that one positive readout resets the valuation by expanding the addressable market and de-risking the acquisition thesis. Near term, catalysts matter more than fundamentals: data windows and label expansions can move these names 15-30% quickly, while execution misses can retrace gains just as fast.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long VRTX on a 3-6 month horizon as a quality-growth compounder; risk/reward favors owning the cash generator while the market re-underwrites non-CF optionality. Add on pullbacks rather than chasing strength.
• Initiate a small speculative long MIRM ahead of the next clinical readouts; this is a catalyst-driven trade with asymmetric upside if one program de-risks the platform, but size it as a binary event risk position.
• Pair trade: long VRTX / short a basket of higher-beta biotech names with weak balance sheets to express quality-over-speculation within healthcare. Expect relative outperformance if the market turns risk-off.
• For MIRM, consider call spreads instead of common stock into the data window to define downside while keeping upside participation if results are positive; the structure better matches the binary payoff profile.
• If VRTX rallies sharply into the next print on already elevated expectations, trim into strength; the stock likely needs execution confirmation in non-CF revenues more than headline enthusiasm.