Pick Pfizer's Rivals

This column was originally published on RealMoney on Feb. 8 at 9:25 a.m. EST. It's being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com readers. For more information about subscribing to RealMoney, please click here.

Everybody wanted Pfizer(PFE Quote)! They all wanted to know about Pfizer. I kid you not!

You know I always play Lightning Round wherever I go. One guy will ask me about a stock in the airport, and no sooner do I answer than the next guy has a question and then the guy after that. Sure enough, there's a dozen questions, maybe two.

On this trip to University of Virginia for the "Mad Money" Back to School Tour, every time we played I got asked about Pfizer -- maybe seven times. Again, I'm not kidding.

Perhaps because I had spent the afternoon with Celgene(CELG Quote) COO Bob Hugin, in each case I shot back Celgene.

The comparison can't be lost on people. Think about it: Pfizer's been making its so-called "upside" surprises by firing people. Celgene's been making its real upside surprises by hiring people and selling more.

Pfizer's earnings could go down big in the out years as Lipitor comes off patent and nothing of any size replaces it. Celgene has 75 trials out there for Revlimid alone, its homegrown blood -cancer disease cure. Hugin says there are six other compounds coming that could also be huge. It's hard to believe that the earnings for this company won't be much bigger in six years, maybe much, much bigger.

But Pfizer has that yield and that brand name, and even though Celgene is a multi-billion dollar company, it's widely perceived as a one-trick nobody that can never take the Revlimid franchise much further than some international sales.

I believe that's wrong. More important, when you buy a drug stock you don't do it for the yield; the only reason Pfizer's yield is so large is because the stock has fallen so much.

I like Gilead(GILD Quote). It's now my biotech stock of the year, and it is on a torrid ramp.