Goldman Sachs: The healthcare sector as a whole is difficult to do, but there are still opportunities to “rush for gold”

Zhitongcaijing · 11/11/2025 06:57

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Goldman Sachs Group strategist David Costin said that the decline in the healthcare sector has created opportunities for stock selectors, but it is difficult for the sector to see an overall rise.

Since this year, the health care sector (XLV) has lagged 8 percentage points behind the S&P 500 index and is expected to outperform the market for the third year in a row. Even after excluding the influence of large-cap technology stocks, the sector's valuation discount compared to broad-based indices is still close to historical extremes.

Costin pointed out that although undervaluation suggests potential upside, steady economic growth, artificial intelligence boom, and policy uncertainty may limit the overall performance of the sector. Instead, he believes that “the opportunities for alpha earnings far outweigh beta earnings,” and pointed out that widening differences in returns and active mergers and acquisitions in the healthcare industry will be the driving factors for selected individual stocks. Nearly half of Goldman Sachs's M&A concept portfolio is healthcare companies, and the bank expects M&A activity to continue to grow until next year.

At the individual stock level, Goldman Sachs selected some healthcare stocks in the Russell 1000 Index. These individual stocks were all recently raised by the agency's earnings forecast for 2026, and their current valuation is below historical levels.

Here is the specific list selected by Goldman Sachs:

Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ.US), Insule (PODD.US), Soterra Health (SHC.US), INCET (INCY.US), Regenerative Pharmaceuticals (REGN.US), Baimarin Pharmaceuticals (BMRN.US), Global Health Services (UHS.US), Doctor Social Network (DOCS.US), Endocrine Biosciences (NBIX.US), Forte Pharmaceuticals (VRTX.US), Inmena (ILMN.US), West Medical Services (WST.US), Davita (DVA.US), Edwards Life Sciences (EW.US), Lilly (LLY.US), Gemma Bangmei Holdings (ZBH.US), Penguin (PEN.US), NVST.US, Medtronic (MDT.US), Veeva Systems (VEEV.US), MASI.US (MASI.US), Pfizer (PFE.US), Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO.US), ResMed (RMD.US), Belle (Laboratories), Setara ( CERT.US), Avery Technology (ALGN.US), Charles River Laboratories International (CRL.US), HOLX.US.