Cathie Wood's Ark Invest Sheds Stake In This Large-Cap Pharma Ahead Of Earnings

Big pharma reporting season was muted, with the quarterly results and guidance coming in mixed.

Merck & Co Inc MRK shares pulled back despite the company reporting this week above-consensus results, with the negative reaction reflecting investors concerns over the sustainability of its oral COVID-19 pill revenues. Roche Holding AG RHHBY also pulled back as the Swiss pharma giant flagged slowing COVID testing revenues.

What Happened: Against this backdrop, money manager Cathie Wood's Ark Invest sold a trio of biopharma stocks on Friday, according to daily trade information released by the fund.

The ARK Genomic Revolution ETF ARKG sold 35,747 shares of Pfizer Inc. PFE on Friday. At the session's closing price of $53, the disposal would have fetched the fund $1.9 million. Pfizer now accounts for 0.05% of the total holdings of the fund.

Pfizer is scheduled to report its fourth-quarter results Tuesday, before the market open. The company is expected to announce strong growth in fourth-quarter revenues to $220.18 billion, with much of its upside coming from its COVID portfolio.

In the year-ago period, revenues stood at $11.7 billion. The company received authorization for its COVID vaccine that was co-developed with BioNTech SE BNTX in mid-December 2020. Subsequently, the company has added an oral COVID antiviral pill Paxlovid to its portfolio.

Ark Sells Regeneron, Vertex Post Earnings: Ark Invest also sold shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. REGN and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated VRTX on Friday. However, the disposals were only nominal, with the fund selling 3,261 shares of the former and 7,624 shares of the latter.

Regeneron shares carved out a modest gain on Friday after the company reported an earnings beat, thanks to the strong uptake of its COVID antibody treatment.

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