Cardinal Health boosts annual profit forecast banking on surging demand for specialty drugs

Reuters

Thu, February 5, 2026 astatine 6:56 AM CST 1 min read

Feb 5 (Reuters) - Cardinal Health connected Thursday raised its expectations for yearly nett aft surpassing Wall Street estimates ​for quarterly results, arsenic it bets connected robust request for ‌specialty medicines and beardown show crossed its segments.

Shares of the Dublin, Ohio-based institution ‌rose much than 3% successful premarket trading.

Drug distributors specified arsenic Cardinal Health, Cencora and McKesson are riding the question of surging request for high-margin medicines that dainty analyzable conditions similar crab and ⁠autoimmune diseases, portion riding ‌biosimilar tailwinds from patent cliffs connected blockbuster drugs.

The companies are besides expanding their beingness successful the specialty ‍medicines marketplace by acquiring crab halfway operators to diversify beyond cause organisation and complement their halfway businesses.

Cardinal's pharmaceutical and specialty solutions conception generated $60.7 cardinal ​in gross successful the 4th ended December 31, up ‌19% year-over-year.

The institution antecedently forecast specialty gross topping $50 cardinal successful 2026, fueled by beardown request successful specialty cause organisation and added that maturation volition besides stem from a projected 30%-plus surge successful its biopharma solutions unit, which immunodeficiency cause improvement and commercialization.

Jefferies analysts ⁠said earlier this week that they ​remain tactically affirmative connected cause distributors ​into earnings, citing undervaluation and beardown maturation outlooks contempt broader healthcare services volatility.

Cardinal expects yearly adjusted per-share nett ‍in the scope ⁠of $10.15 to $10.35 per share, compared with astatine slightest $10 per stock forecast previously.

Its quarterly gross of $65.63 cardinal came successful supra ⁠analysts' mean estimation of $64.14 billion, according to information compiled by LSEG.

Adjusted nett per ‌share of $2.63 bushed estimates of $2.36.

(Reporting by Padmanabhan Ananthan successful ‌Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)