# Large-Cap Health Care: Cheap Forward P/E with Positive EPS Growth
**Query:** US large-cap health care stocks with positive earnings growth, ranked by forward P/E, showing distance from 52-week high
**Data as of:** 2026-10-16

0 US large-cap (>= $10B) health care stocks show positive year-over-year EPS growth as of October 16, 2026. Valuation dispersion is wide: managed care and a few pharma names trade in the single digits to low-teens forward P/E, while biotech, tools and diagnostics names sit at 30x+ on recovery earnings.

### US Large-Cap Health Care Stocks with Positive EPS Growth — Cheapest Forward P/E First

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### Health Care Large Caps by Industry — Size = Market Cap

_[heatmap: Health Care Large Caps by Industry — Size = Market Cap]_

### 0

## Where the value sits in large-cap health care

Cheap forward multiples are not randomly distributed across this screen — they cluster in three places, each for a different reason:

**1. Big pharma with a cliff in the future.** Bristol-Myers, Sanofi, GSK, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Merck and Novo Nordisk all trade in the single digits to mid-teens on forward earnings. The market is not questioning the cash flows; it is discounting the *duration* of those cash flows ahead of major loss-of-exclusivity events, plus, for the European names, a persistent non-US listing discount. In a market where the cost of capital is repricing long-dated cash flows (see the widening spread between dividend payers and non-payers), these shorter-duration, cash-return-heavy franchises are the least exposed to that penalty.

**2. Policy-exposed domestic care providers (FMS, UHS, CI, HCA).** Hospital operators and managed care sit at 6–14x because reimbursement is a political variable, not a demand variable. Utilization is fine; Medicaid supplemental payments and PBM reform are what caps multiples. Cigna's additional discount for pharmaca-benefit exposure makes it the value anchor of the group.

**3. Cyclical recovery stories (Solventum, Philips, Smith & Nephew, Teva).** These look cheap on depressed-base comparisons and depend on self-help execution and margin repair rather than top-line growth.

## Where the risk is concentrated

Earnings-growth figures in this screen are noisy at both tails. Tripled-thousand-percent growth for Incyte, Gilead and Vertex reflects low bases, one-time items and launch ramp, not durable growth rates. A forward P/E of 12x on a number that will not repeat is not a bargain. Conversely, Novo Nordisk's drawdown is the screen's most interesting contrarian valuation gap — the GLP-1 demand story is intact while pricing and supply worries have compressed the multiple.

## Setup and momentum

Technical positioning splits the list cleanly. Names at or near 52-week highs (Teva, Exelixis, Gilead, Cardinal Health, McKesson, Encompass, TMO) carry the strongest momentum scores and reflect earnings revisions actually winning. The steepest drawdowns belong to quality-growth franchises (Boston Scientific, Zoetis, Alnylam, Novo Nordisk) — these are where a value screen meets a quality pullback, but none is a trade until the trend stabilizes. Health care as a sector has been one of the better performers of late, so the cheaper names here are not cheap because the sector is out of favor — they are idiosyncratically discounted.

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