Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 1/14/25
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I'm here to level the playing field for all investors. There's always a bull market somewhere, and I promise to help you find it. Mad Money starts now. Hey, I'm Kramer. Welcome to a special San Francisco edition of Mad Money. Welcome to Kramerica. I'll be with my friends. I'm just trying to make a little money. My job is not just to entertain, but to educate you. So call me at 1-800-743-CNBC or tweet me at Jim Kramer.

Sometimes, reluctantly, Wall Street has to think long-term. I say reluctantly because in this business, if you're talking long-term, that usually means you're either missing numbers or you're dead. That's what I keep thinking as we swoop down to the second day of the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, which is filled with CEOs who are talking about the future of healthcare, even as most investors would say, hey, listen, tell me what happened today. So here's what happened. Dow advanced 221 points, S&P advanced 0.11%, and the Nasdaq lost 0.23%.

Why am I so willing to focus on the so-called out years? Because the long-term possibilities for these companies, frankly, they're incredible. By the way, incredibly lucrative, too, even as the present is good but not great. So at the risk of antagonizing the day traders out there, let me tell you what I saw today. Give you a prelude to some of our amazing guests.

I want to start with a stock that got pummeled today, Eli Lilly, pulverized. Here's a company that preannounced $58 to $61 billion in revenue next year, substantially better than expected on the back of those GLP-1 drugs approved for diabetes, weight loss, and now obstructive sleep apnea. There's just one problem here.

Louis' fourth quarter estimates, the fourth quarter that we just finished, they aren't as strong as Wall Street was hoping. So it went from the best to the best to the worst to the worst, finishing at the bottom of the S&P 500 today, which is saying something because there are 499 other companies in that index that perform better than this colossus. So why am I not perturbed?

Why aren't I like everybody else running for the hills? Why didn't we tell people in the CBC Investing Club that we take advantage of the decline to do some buying after selling quite a few shares at much higher levels? I feel very alone on that. Well, I'll tell you why.

See, I'm thinking that Lilly's wonder drug Mujara, also known as Zepbound, has way too many potential indications to write it off because of one subpar quarter. This drug, I believe, will work against hypertension, known as the silent killer, heart failure, complicated liver disease, joints, dementia, and yes, heavy drinking. It has so many uses that Lilly's spending $20 billion to build up manufacturing so it can meet the demand. Even

even though there's a very capable competitor, Novo Nordisk, and there are a lot of companies trying to get into the space. These GOP-1 drugs are not easy to make. So that spending is the secret mode that will keep the competitors at bay. Hey, but short term, they admit that they haven't done a great job launching the drug. I'm not thrilled about that either, I got to tell you. However, I can't think of a better chance to buy the stock on weakness, given that Moongarro is growing faster than any other large drug.

So let me ask you, do we want the fastest ramp up or do we want the biggest drug of all time? The so-called community of analysts wants the former. I'll take the latter any day of the week. Oh, did I mention they'll soon have this weight loss drug in pill form, not just injectable for those who don't like to give themselves a shot once a week? Of course, it's not just the box launch that's holding Lilly back.

Bobby Kennedy Jr., Trump's nominee for health and human services, is universally known as an anti-vaccine proponent. Now, that's true. But you could also think of him as a believer in diet and exercise. He's not a huge fan of the GOP-1 drugs. But the food industry has made that diet and exercise regimen almost impossible for most people. So why not let those who can't diet or exercise enough take the shot?

Oh, let me give you another name here. Yes, the giant head and shoulders pattern in the stock's chart. Any chart that's worth its salt knows that the trigger pictograph, what that spells. So short-term things may look ugly for Lilly. I'm sorry. I'm a long-term believer. I say that you want to buy, buy, buy. Or how about Merck? Okay, now here's a company with the single greatest anti-cancer franchise of all time. It's called Keytruda.

But I think it's not getting enough credit for an acquisition it made in 2021. That was a purchase of Acceleron for $11.5 billion. With that acquisition, they got this drug called Winrever. It is approved by the FDA just this last year for an almost always fatal disease called pulmonary arterial hypertension. This is a drug that, according to Merck's very non-promotional CEO, Rob Davis, has, quote, pulled people back from the brink of death.

He goes on to explain that sick people who use this drug are now, I'm going to quote, alive and may have to go back to work again when someone moves them. They also have a shot, Gardasil, that protects against HPV. It's a very common STD that can cause cervical cancer. It's a true lifesaver. Women have been using it for years. Chinese government recently approved it for men, too. But for some reason, Merck's having a problem with its Chinese distribution and women.

Weird situation going on over there. Right now, the stock's well ensconced, a few points from its 52-week low. I don't think it's going to stay down there. But I can't tell you how long it'll take for Merck to bounce back. So does that mean sell? Sure, if you're a day trader, but not if you're an investor. How about Regeneron? Now, here's a stock that traded at 1,211 in August of last year. Now, after declining nearly 4% today alone, it sits at 690.

The issue. Regeneron has this fabulous high-care franchise being challenged by an Amgen biosimilar. By the way, that's a biotech version of just a generic drug.

That's all Wall Street cares about. Doesn't matter if a generalist is working on 40 different compounds, many of which could be blockbusters. Doesn't matter if their breakthrough drug, Dupixen, is indicated for seven gigantic illnesses, asthma, eczema, nasal polyps. This company has never lost its ability to develop new medicines, including the one that likely saved President-elect Trump's life when he caught COVID near the end of his first term. For now, none of that seems to matter. But, you know, one day it will.

I still can't believe that Avid Labs, perhaps the most diversified healthcare company in the world with some of the greatest growth franchises, has a series of lawsuits hanging over its head, crimping its price journeys multiple. I think Avid will win these baby formula cases, yet who wants that overhang, right? Certainly not Wall Street. So what does the stock do? It languishes. Who knows how quickly things can change, though?

Yesterday, I'll give you an example. We had Jeff Marthorn. He's the CEO of Medtronic. That's another stock that hasn't done anything lately. I thought he told a great story about all the new products he's rolling out, life-saving products nobody seemed to care about. It was a big yawn. Uh-uh.

Today, when the stock was one of the best performers, the S&P 500 up 4%. I remember what he said yesterday, which is things are pretty darn good. It does make a difference. Look, stocks go in and out of style on the Wall Street fashion show. You know that. I've taught you that. Whole sector's wild at times. Right now, health care's in some sort of doghouse, the likes of which I've never seen.

I've got to tell you, companies with terrific multi-year growth prospects, should they really be kept down by rising interest rates, political headwinds? To me, that's precisely why these health care stocks are currently so cheap. Hey, call me a miser. I like cheap. But the bottom line, ask yourself what happens if things get better, please. What if the future is brighter than the past? If that's the case, and I think it is, then you have a lot of winners with these drug and medical device plays.

Glad I could be here to tell you their stories. Let's take questions. Go to Gregory in California. Gregory. Happy New Year, Jim. I hope you're having a good one so far. So far, so good. And I always love it when you call. That California accent does throw me the.

Yeah. Well, it's the smoke inhalation. What can I tell you? It's changed my voice entirely. You know, when we last spoke in early November, it was just before the election when I bought half a position in this stock. It was at $242, as I recall. We spoke about the club actually taking a position in it, but I know it was Lisa's birthday weekend. I'm sure you had some appropriate amount of phosphor to celebrate. But after the election, this stock rocketed higher. Yeah.

Actually reaching 480. It was a double by mid-December before settling back down to 380. So my question, Jim, is should I have trimmed at those ludicrous highs or is now the time to buy the other half so I can get a full position in a stock that could actually go, frankly, a lot higher? And you know I'm talking about Tesla.

It was my wife's birthday that it kind of threw me off my game. This is correct. This Gregory points out. Gregory, I think that your Tesla idea is a terrific one. I do want you to buy more. Ever since we talked last, Tesla's become much more of a tech stock and much less of a car stock. And that's why you keep going higher. And thank you for the kind words. You're just a blast. OK, look, right now, health care is it's in the doghouse. I mean, what can I do? It's really, really depressing. But.

If their future is brighter than the past, I think you're getting a real opportunity on some of these terrific companies. On May 20th tonight, I'm concluding my conversation with some of healthcare's biggest names, including my excuses. Write these down. Abbott Labs, Merck, Regeneron, Cardinal Health. It's been a jam-packed day at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. You do not want to miss these interviews, so stay with Kramer.

Don't miss a second of Mad Money. Follow at Jim Kramer on X. Have a question? Tweet Kramer. Hashtag Mad Mentions. Send Jim an email to madmoneyatcnbc.com or give us a call at 1-800-743-CNBC. Miss something? Head to madmoney.cnbc.com.

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What's next for Kramer Fave Abbott Laboratories? The medical technology coming down for the tribal trust. I thought they told a very good story at last year's JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, but then the stock got derailed by all the fear over some baby formula litigation. Last fall, though, they won their first major victory in court. I am confident the stock can march higher now that investors can focus on the fundamentals again, because the fundamentals, they're very strong. But don't take it from me. Over today, I sat down with Robert Ford. He's the chairman and CEO of Abbott Labs. Take a look.

Robert, I want to use this moment to reintroduce Abbott. People don't realize what's happened in the last five years, how much bigger it's gotten, how much more you're spending R&D. I just want you to tell people who Abbott Labs really is. Well, we're probably one of the most diversified healthcare companies right now. We have a nutrition business, a diagnostic business, a medical device business, and a pharmaceutical business in emerging markets. Over the last five years, we've grown our revenue $10 billion organically.

We've increased our income by $3 billion. We've increased R&D spend by 30%. Our CapEx spend has increased by 60%, investing in manufacturing and digital transformation. And at the same time, we've returned $25 billion to our shareholders. So we've been able to invest in the business, grow the business organically, and our shareholders have been able to benefit through that return.

And yet, we'll go into this. This stock is very inexpensive. We own it for the Chapel Trust because it is so inexpensive. We've been owning it for years and years, even from your predecessor. But I think many people know you as the people who solve the conundrum about whether they have COVID or not. Right.

Yes, I mean, that was an interesting period in my first couple of years. The company did incredible work. That business is now, as a lot of the COVID businesses and therapies and such have kind of gone down to more of an endemic. We can now see who the real Abbott is. Yeah, that's now behind us. We've got an endemic state. I mean, it's about $500 million of revenue, and those are real earnings that are going to continue to be there. Well, let's talk about the Abbott that I think people should know at home. Let's talk about Lieberth.

and your strategy for glucose monitor because this is one of the most amazing amazing inventions in history yeah incredible technology we had figured out how to measure glucose from the interstitial fluid many years ago the real innovation came in terms of how we manufactured it manufactured at scale and that incredible technology that the team put together really allowed us to take a different approach really approach this as a mass market opportunity and price it

at a way that allowed for a pretty significant penetration for moving the product from a niche segment to a much more broader segment. And that's what we're seeing. And that's really been at the core of Libre is that scale and that leadership and cost allows us to really broaden the

the reimbursement of the system. And while you do it, I mean, there is a differentiation between Libre 1, 2, and 3, and 3 apparently has taken the world by storm. Correct. Yeah, we had, so Libre 3 is the thinnest, the lowest profile, the smallest sensor, and that's important for people with diabetes. We are manufacturing this at scale. We just opened a new facility now, so we are having some challenges with demand and supply.

High quality problem. But, you know, Abbott, we don't like those problems either. But now we've invested in supply and that supply is coming online and we'll start to continue to see this very strong growth rate in this platform. I think people have to start understanding Abbott as a health and wellness company because you apparently were the hit with Lingo. It's C-E-S. And you've also possibility have an app

one day. They'll be able to tell us what we're eating, whether it's good or bad. But tell us about Lingo right now. Lingo's doing great. If you remember last year, we talked about it. We got approval for it towards the end of the year. We launched it as a direct consumer play here in the United States, really focusing on four to five markets only, four to five cities. It just really tells you how you're doing.

It tells you how you're doing. It gives you insights. It's like a personal metabolic coach. It translates all what you're eating and tries to give you insights on how to eat and how to do that. So the weekly orders are increasing every single week. What I really like about it is the retention rates and the reorder rates are...

positively surprising. So that means that people not only trying it, but they're sticking with it. And that's really good. Can it be billion? Listen, this year we're going to focus on expanding distribution, potentially bring it into retail, and then going across the entire United States. I think over time, this could be larger than Libre.

That would be incredible. Yeah, because the amount of people that it's healthy people that want to stay healthy. And there's a lot more people that are in that category than people with diabetes. Last quarter, you had some litigation problems. The stock goes from 109 to 99. You were fortunate to come on squawk on the street. And we kind of explained that at the same time, though, there's still some people who think that you've got serious litigation risk for a very specialized portion of your life.

baby formula. It's $9 million in revenues that's backed by the NIH, the FDA, and the CDC, and yet still there are lawyers suing you. It seems like that that may have run its course to some degree. I know that's hard to predict, but it seems like it. It's hard to predict, but, you know, I'd say I was, it's a difficult situation for these families to have to go through this, but I would say I was pleased that we won the last case.

I was pleased at these public statements. The product is a standard care, there's no causal evidence and let the specialists decide how to feed these very, very fragile. So, you know, I think that was a good win and, you know, I'm

I think we've all got to come together, all the stakeholders, and say, listen, this is an important food for these premature babies, and let's resolve this. Let's solve this. And there are a lot of stakeholders, whether they're in government or in regulators, that are taking a close look at this. All right.

Now, I know I wanted to go into some of the great things you're doing with Heart and with St. Jude, the wires, how your dual chambers. It's so great what you're doing. But it is wildcard. We just had wildcard week, and next is divisional playoffs. And you're doing concussion work that may resonate throughout the whole world, particularly with younger people, who we don't know whether they have a concussion or not. Yeah, we developed a rapid blood test that is a rule out to determine if somebody does not have a concussion.

And so the product we have today is a venous sample. And our vision is that this will become available in every single high school in the United States. So we're not just looking at people's eyes or holding fingers up or making a subjective judgment. None of that. We'll have an objective blood test to say, you know what, you do not have a concussion. You can get back in the game. And how soon can every city and every school have this? We're working on the clinical trial. So we're a couple years out. Wow.

But at least for the medical environment, so like, you know, physicians can do this test. But I'm talking about the end state where a school nurse on a football field on the sideline can do it. That's a couple of years away. Concussion just so horrible. And people don't realize you have multiple concussions. Exactly. Wow. Exactly. So bad. Anyway, this is Robert Ford, chairman and CEO of Abbott Labs, a company we own with my travel trust for many, many years. Robert, thank you so much. Jim, nice to see you.

Coming up, after making breakthroughs in oncology, Kramer's sitting down with Merck's top brass to learn more about how the company is revolutionizing cancer prevention and treatment. Next.

With a few notable exceptions, this has not been a great period for anything healthcare. Take Merck. Last year, the big pharma colossus was down almost 9%. Is there any reason to think 2025 will be any better? Look, Merck's been putting in a ton of effort to deliver more blockbuster drugs. Now it's running up against some big patent expirations. The number of phase three drugs in their pipeline is

has tripled versus three years ago. So what's going to move the needle this year? Earlier today, we got the chance to sit down with Rob Davis. He's the chairman, president, and CEO of Merck. To find out, take a look.

Well, when we last talked to you, it made an acquisition. People were concerned about it. But now I'm reading that Winrevere has pulled people back from the brink of death. It's that strong a formulation. Yeah, well, no, Winrevere has been an amazing drug. It truly has. And what we're seeing is, and it's anecdotal, but we've actually had patients who were

on transplant lists who have been taken off almost, you know, a very short time after starting Winrevere. So it's happening, an amazing fact. We need to continue to see it grow, which we're confident it will. But it's an important drug for sure. I started with that because I think most people start with Keytruda and their mind is numb. They don't realize maybe prostate, maybe bladder, maybe head and neck. And they feel that Merck has become Keytruda. I think when you have

one of the greatest drugs of all time, it does tend to blot out others that you're working on. - Yeah, well, you know, and I think it's a great point to raise because Keytruda has truly been transformational in the treatment of cancer. But importantly, we are now in a situation where we can really leverage

the strength of Keytruda to go well beyond Keytruda. So today, we now have a much broader pipeline in tissue targeting agents with antibody drug conjugates into different areas of molecular targeting agents, things like Ras G12C as an example. So we are much broader today. I would no longer think of us as a Keytruda company. We are an oncology company and increasingly,

We're a diversified company because as you mentioned, Wynn Revere and the cardiometabolic space, we have other opportunities there we can talk about. And we're moving into immunology, moving now into ophthalmology. So the breadth and the depth of the pipeline we have right now

is the most diversified in the company's recent history, which I'm really excited about. - I think people don't understand also, you're not just targeting the so-called easy cancers. You're going after the cancers that have been something that had been worked on for 150 years and no hope. - Yeah, well, you know, one I might highlight there that we're really excited about, we did a deal in 2024 for a company called Harpoon

brought in a T-cell engager. This is a new approach to how to think about cancer. And when we combine that T-cell engager with the B7H3 antibody drug conjugate we have with Daiichi Sankyo, we now believe we have a real opportunity to go into small cell lung cancer, a significant portion of lung cancer, which largely

has been untreated. There's been nothing. And that's just one example where I think now we're at a point to really be able to go after some of these cancers that historically have been very difficult to prosecute. It's my job to talk about the stock, and I see the stock at 99 with a very good yield. And I say to myself, well, maybe the problem is Gardasil. And we may have someone in the administration, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who doesn't really necessarily believe in vaccines. How big is Gardasil and how big can it be?

Yeah, well, so Gardasil for us right now, if you look on a global basis, is, you know, an eight-ish billion. It peaked at about eight and a half. And we believe we can continue to go and drive towards achieving 11 billion

by 2030 because there still is a significant unmet need out there that we have to address, really a global need, and not only continuing to penetrate for females to help with cervical cancer, but increasingly for males for HPV-related cancers that are specific to men in addition to helping ensure that by having the male population

vaccinated, we protect the females. So, you know, this is an area where we are continuing to invest. And I think the science and the effectiveness of this drug is proven. It is truly seen globally as an anti-cancer vaccine. It's one of the only ones out there. Let's talk about globally, because I know the Chinese have they've not necessarily had a what I call a reasonable game plan that could change.

Yeah, well, so if you look at where we are in China, we've been really focused to date on the female population. We just got approval for Gardasil for males in China in the 9 to 26-year-old category. And so we're in the middle of launching that. That's about 200 million people

200 million males in the demographic that we think we can go after on top of the 120 million females still out there. So China is still an opportunity, but increasingly we're looking to how we go beyond China broadly and frankly beyond Gardasil to the breadth of the portfolio we have.

I do want to talk about GLP-1 because you are working on some things that I know you are someone who under promises possibility of over deliver, but you've got ideas that are a little bit different in terms of making it so that if it's that big a drug, there's a lot of room for more. Yeah. So there's, you know, we have really two areas we're focusing on in the GLP-1 space. We have today in phase 2b development, a GLP-1 glucagon dual agonist for MASH.

This is an injectable peptide combination with the glucagon that we think is best in class in liver fat reduction. It brings with it weight loss characteristics pretty similar to you can think of an ozempic type level. And that drug is something we think could be very important because while obviously the GLP-1s have been important, they have not penetrated MASH the way we think they could. And we think we have best in class.

which I think you're referring to is beyond that. We just did a deal to bring in an oral GLP-1 small molecule. And our belief is if you can find the right oral small molecule GLP-1 backbone, the ability to combine that with multiple different agents to start to drive meaningful outcome improvements beyond just the weight loss benefits is what we're really focusing on dealing with some of the side effects that the current drugs have, the nausea, how can you manage those elements

the muscle degradation, some of those elements. So really it's the next generation of GLP-1s is we're focused oral small molecules, and that really probably will be out for us into the early 2030s. Well, I think, Rob, the things that you've done are remarkable. Most of the time when I see these acquisitions, by the way, I get very concerned that they can ever –

deliver on the numbers. Wynn Revere, I started with that only just because this is a wonder job. It is. You made the right move on that one. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Rob Davis, Chairman and CEO of Merck. Always good to see you, sir. Thank you. Great to see you. Coming up with Regeneron shares sliding, Kramer's talking to the CEO to find out if what's in the pipeline can revitalize the pharmaceutical name's long-term prospects. Next.

What the heck just happened to the stock of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals? After spending the last couple decades steadily roaring higher, this stock has plunged more than 40% from its all-time highs just last August. It fell another 26 points today, or 3.6%. Now, some of that's because the market has no appreciation for drug stocks, but some of it's because they've lost exclusivity for ILEA. That's a treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration. Yet,

Yesterday, Regeneron had more bad news in the ILEA front. Their high-dose version had weaker-than-expected sales in the fourth quarter, although they also had some positive things to say about a couple of other big drugs hitting major milestones. ILEA is a huge franchise for these guys, so will they be able to get Wall Street to look through that, maybe focus on a very exciting pipeline? Earlier today, I spoke with Dr. Len Schleifer. He's the co-founder, co-chair, and CEO of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, one of the first guests that we had on Mad Money nearly 20 years ago. Take a look.

Glenn, I'm thrilled to see you because people may not realize you were my first guest. Your stock was at five. How would you have done had you bought the stock and held on to it? Five bucks. It's hard to do that math. Those are big numbers, but you're going to be up over 100-fold for sure. Well, I like that. It's good to make money for people. Now, I want to talk about that for right now. When I listen to the dialogue of the analysts and you, it's about how ILEA, HD, maybe it's disappointing that was the first drug you used.

introduced on our show and that Regeneron really should just be returning capital. Can we reframe the discussion, reframe the dialogue? What should people really be thinking about when it comes to Regeneron? Right. I think you have to understand where drugs come from, where our drugs come from. We have two of the biggest drugs in the history of the industry with Dupix and ILEA. And they're not dropped in at the mailbox

We don't buy them from somebody else. George Anacopoulos, our chief scientific officer and the team invent these things. They come from our pipeline. So we've proven we can do that. We've got these two mega blockbusters. We've had 10 drugs approved.

We have 40 drugs in development now, 40 drugs. At the conference here this week, we talked about 10 of them addressing markets of an aggregate maybe $200 billion. Okay, explain to me why people feel that you're after niche area.

I don't understand why people feel that. Allergy, they think, is niche. That's silly. How many people have serious allergic diseases? There's a tremendous amount of... a tremendous need. You know, our first patient, which we talked about at the conference yesterday, is a patient who is allergic to so many things that the only thing this person could eat is formula, chicken, and potatoes. Nothing else. Imagine that existence, okay? And so...

Allergy is a very big problem, and it's a serious problem. Plus, people can die from allergic diseases. Well, inflammation, when we talk about eczema, eczema is a gigantic market. Again, you are the dominant player in that market. Right. You know, people use the word dominant, and why are you dominant? Because you bring a drug that really changes people's lives.

And if I showed you the pictures, even of the babies with really bad eggs, red, scratched, oozing, and then after a few doses, we've seen these miraculous. I use the word miraculous because the effect on some people's eczema has, in fact, been miraculous. All right, so let's go back to Dupixent. Why does this have so many indications? What is it about that works for so many different ways? Right. So it turns out that some people...

have what's called type 2 inflammation. It's a type of allergic inflammation, and it gets manifest in many different ways. In some people, it gets manifest as

eczema. In other people, it gets manifested as asthma. Some people, it gets manifested as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Some people, it's esophagitis. Some people, it's nasal polyps. But it's all this common theme is type 2 inflammation. So our drug, naturally, if it's able to block type 2 inflammation, will work in a variety of diseases where type 2 inflammation is the driver.

Now, I do want to go back over ILEA so you have a better version, lasts a lot longer. When you first came on, Avastin was weak and you said, listen, how about if you do it only once a month? This is now not even once a month. At the same time, Amgen issues biosimilars so people feel that ILEA-HD, no longer an important drug. Can you explain why both of those, why don't you just say why both of those narratives are incorrect? Well, yeah.

I think that you have to understand that, first of all, thanks, Tam, imitation is the best form of flattery. If they want to spend their time imitating us, God bless them. We'd rather spend our time innovating. We bring forward, they're working on yesterday's news, which is kind of ILEA. We're working on the next generation, ILEA HD. And so they're kind of chasing the future. We're trying to create the future. Now, one thing, do people realize that you have a,

very formative cancer oncological franchise? I don't think they do. You know, it's interesting. How big? Well, we've already cost a billion dollars in our first drug, Liptio. But what we're going after is tens of billions of dollars. And it's interesting, just yesterday we announced this study. You might find this fascinating, Jim, where we did a study in what's called squamous cell, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, where people who have... Skin cancer. Skin cancer. People who've had surgery...

But the docs are afraid that it was going to come back. Okay? And it does come back. Yeah, and it does come back, unfortunately. And it can be bad when it comes back. Well, we showed a 68% reduction on the risk of coming back. And by the way, our chief competitor...

Keytruda did the same setting. They had nothing. Their trial failed. So I feel that Regeneron knows how to make and develop drugs for important conditions. This is an important condition. We'll submit it to the FDA shortly. -Okay, a lot of people are concerned about -- In the current administration, the one that's flying in this course, President Biden didn't want to be in the same room as CEOs. How would you regard your relation with President Trump?

Well, I would say the pillar of that relationship might be that the drug that George invented, a monoclonal antibody, probably saved his life. Well, that could be in a transactional presidency. That could play a role. Perhaps. But that's what we do. We try and save people's lives. It happened that we saved the president's life. Now, what do you think happened to, I know it's up to me to talk about the stock, but what

How did the analysts get so trapped in the idea that all that mattered was the biosimilars in Amgen? Because it's the opportunity for people who think long term to be able to buy. Yeah, I mean, I think that people have a hard time a little bit with Regeneron. When you have a company that has two mega blockbusters, 40 things in the pipeline, 40 things, it's hard to focus. So they focus on something that's easy for them to look at, a

quarterly number. We're looking out over years and decades and so forth. And there's a little bit of an iceberg effect that people looked at something and they missed the whole picture. The whole picture is we're the company that brought you two of the biggest drugs in the history of the industry.

And our pipeline of 40, I think, is going to bring you more of those. Well, I'm glad you're taking a long-term view. That's why people watch our show. That's what they're interested in. CEO of Regeneron again. Our first guest, $5. I call that thankful. Thank you, Link. Thank you, Jim. Great to see you. When we return, master the markets one stock at a time. The lightning round is up next.

I would like to dedicate this lightning round to a mad money staffer who is faster than lightning and just ran nearly 50 miles in a few days at Disney World. Yes, it's Alyssa and the Shermanators. I call her. We are so proud of you. And now it is time. It is time for the lightning round. And then the lightning round is over. Are you ready? Let's start with Tyrone and Virginia. Tyrone.

Oh, yeah, Jim. I'm looking at two stocks. I was looking at the Starbucks because I'm intrigued by Brian Nichols taking over. Right.

But Christine Brioni, she seemed like she's taking Dutch Bros to the top. That's the exact thought. You know, I'm going to give you a twofer. I'm not supposed to, but I will. Starbucks, I like for the Chapel Trust, and I think Christine is doing a remarkable job at Dutch Bros. Yes, the stock is all the way up. You buy some now at $126 times earnings, then you buy some lower, and that's the way to play it. Let's go to Tom in Arizona. Tom. Hey, Jim.

The stock I'm calling about was a market darling back in May, but it's pretty much tanked since. It does pay an 8% dividend, but the quarterly amount really fluctuates. Analysts seem to be all over the board on it. So, Jim, is it time to sell, hold, or load up on Ardmore Shipping? I'm not a fan of Ardmore Shipping. I'm not a fan of most of the container and just kind of commercial cargo ships because they tend to be too episodic for me. So I'm going to take a pass. Let's go to Jerry in Arizona. Jerry.

Mr. Kramer, good afternoon. I'm calling to ask you for your opinion. My stock has just had Hindenburg Research accuse the company of falsifying the books. And after that, Ernst & Young, who was doing the books, quit. Earnings have been delayed.

because of this. My question is, is SMCI super microcomputer a buy, sell, or hold? I have very strict rules in companies that have accounting issues, and that is sell. It doesn't matter. I don't care. And that's it. Accounting and regularities equals sell. It's made me a lot more money and saved me a lot more money than any of the rules that I have. I'm going to Mark in New Jersey. Mark. Mark. Why don't we go to Sam instead? Let's go to Sam in Pennsylvania. Sam.

Jim, how are you doing? Let's go, Barry. Anyway, here's the company that I discovered on my way into the city of Philadelphia, and that's FMC Corporation. Locals may know it by its shiny global headquarters right near 30th Street Station.

well aware of it. And FMC, the old food machinery company, by the way, I love Philadelphia, but I can only make that one a whole because I don't like the sector it is in. Crop chemicals, phagocytes. No, I'm not there for that. I'm sorry. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the Lightning Round. The Lightning Round is sponsored by Charles Schwab.

Coming up, could the drug distributors be an under-the-radar winner in the healthcare space? Kramer's going one-on-one with Cardinal Health to see how it brings treatments all the way from pharma companies to patients. Next...

I've got to say, I love an industry that can take a ton of political heat without doing too much damage to the stocks, to say nothing of the earnings. Take the drug distributors. President-elect Trump has bashed the middlemen in the health care system, and the drug distributors, they're definitely middlemen. But they also save their customers a lot of money and consistently generate strong numbers. Take

Cardinal Health, which is actually going well beyond a middleman these days. This morning, they announced that their earnings for the current fiscal year should come in at the high end of the previous guidance. Doesn't hurt that the stock is just darn cheap. But is that enough, given that the whole industry could have a target payment on its back? Earlier today, we got a chance to check in with Jason Holler. He's the CEO of Cardinal Health on the sidelines of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. Take a

Jason, a lot of people think that your company is just a middleman, but you have reinvented this company. You are now a force to help community-based physicians. You've even done a private label. This is not the old Cardinal.

Well, we had some of those pieces for many, many years, but you're right, we're leaning into investments on the wide end of the spectrum of healthcare industry. And when you think about where Cardinal Health participates today, it's the beginning, the middle, and the end of the industry. We work with every innovator, every manufacturer in the healthcare space,

and we deliver those products all the way through the infrastructure to the final customer, final providers, and in some cases directly to the patient. And in some cases we're the actual provider, in some cases we're the actual manufacturer. So we're not just the middle, we're throughout the whole spectrum of the business. - And why do you think people don't see that? - I think they do more and more, especially who matters most, which are our customers and patients, those that rely on us for that service each and every day. I think there's opportunities to tell the story more broadly to investors and the public.

But generally speaking, we are a B2B company and we're really focused on making sure our customers' needs are taken care of more than anyone else.

You were talking about making some acquisitions and they might change again the face of the company and then you proceeded to do some very big ones but didn't hurt the balance sheet. Right, right. Yeah, no, and it's completely consistent with our strategy. What we've done with specialty business more than any of the others, which are three of those four acquisitions that we've done more recently, is very much focused on providing broader capabilities for that specialty community physician.

that physician has broad needs. For a long time, they've received great service as it relates to distribution and other contracting support, but what we've done is augmented our capabilities to provide other data and technology solutions, like the PPS analytics that we acquired with the specialty networks acquisition to provide a full capability for helping those physicians manage the clinical and communication needs with their patients, but also more recently, two of the big ones in oncology and in the GI space is for the MSOs to help

physicians manage their back office as well as their complex administrative system. Okay, well let's go there. The GI Alliance, Advanced Diabetics Supply Group, these are things that I don't see otherwise. So please explain to people because these are what I call proprietary businesses, not commodity businesses. That's right, Jim. Much higher margin, very fast-growing businesses. Two very different acquisitions in two very different spaces. The first, GI Alliance, is in that specialty physician

physician, community physician space. It is focused today on the GI space, gastroenterology. However, what we saw with that team and that product and that capability is a fantastic opportunity to expand beyond GI into other therapeutic areas. So what we're doing with the MSOs and the specialty support is having two very independent platforms.

platforms. One for oncology, those oncologists have very specific needs, and the other one is in the other 60% of the marketplace. And that is GI, it's rheumatology, it's urology, neurology. And so there's a lot of opportunities for us to take that very strong start that GI Alliance has built and bring it across into those other therapeutic areas. For a moment, I just want to talk about the back end. You're a technologist, but you're also a rather humble business person, but you have used quietly

artificial intelligence in a way that has made it so your substantial customer service business is actually generating not the negativity that everybody else is. Yeah, we're using it across the business. And so we don't talk about AI for AI's sake. We talk about what does it do for the efficiency of the business, but more importantly, what does it do for our customers, for physicians, for the providers to provide better services ultimately to patients?

And it's those outcomes that at the end of the day helps the patient, but creates a lot of value for that physician. But also, of course, you know, we participate in that as well. Doing what people don't also realize is you have a substantial business, PBM, a substantial business. And by the way, you're also Optima RX is a huge customer with 17% of your business.

Well, it was. So Optum is no longer a customer. I'm saying that it didn't hurt you when they. No, no, that's that's right. We had a very clear plan. What's the second largest customer? People have to realize most companies would miss the quarter, miss the quarter, miss the quarter. And we had a very strong plan to remediate that.

So it's about $40 billion of revenue that was a cliff event at the beginning of this fiscal year. And we had a very strong plan in place. We got on it and we already had a lot of commercial momentum with other customers. Our value proposition was stronger with other customers. Optum is a big, good customer, but it was low margin and the volume was quite volatile and more complex to support. So what we have done is taken that time, attention, capacity, and we focused on those customers that value those services.

In addition, we made some other investments. No, I have to bring it up because one of the reasons why people hated Cardinal, frankly, was because if you lose your second largest customer, there's no way you can make the numbers. But you made it up with better margin, including acquisitions, business, and you just ran Cardinal

better and I think that that's why this stock's 52 week high. Most of the stocks I've talked to right here, 52 week low. Yeah, well we certainly executed on this business. Even with that plan, we only had a 1-3% earnings growth expectation for the pharma segment this year. Last quarter we had a fantastic first quarter of the year. That allowed us to increase our full year guidance to 4-6% for that segment, which is our long term expectations for that business.

And this morning we announced that we're at the high end of our expectations for the year, which means that you would expect us to take our expectations for the pharma segment above that four to six percent range. And that's in a year where we have that. We also have this year some pretty significant headwinds related to lower COVID vaccine volumes. So we're managing through all that just through

Absolutely terrific execution by the team. And they've tripped up a lot of other companies, I should mention, because it's very special. Most of the companies here are trying to get people to look at their stock. Your stock is glaring that it's at 52-week high, not 52-week low. So I want to congratulate Jason Holler, CEO of Cardinal Health, who, remember, lost his second-largest customer and still beat the quarter and the year. Congratulations, Jason. Thanks, Jim.

I learned so much from the CEOs who joined us on the show today. And make sure to tune in tomorrow for another action-packed lineup of guests, including the new mayor of San Francisco. I like to say there's always a bull market somewhere, and I promise to try to find it just for you right here on MidMoney. I'm Jim Cramer. See you tomorrow.

All opinions expressed by Jim Cramer on this podcast are solely Cramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal, or their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by Cramer on television, radio, internet, or another medium.

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