Biotech company Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX) reported Q4 CY2025 results topping the market’s revenue expectations, with sales up 9.5% year on year to $3.19 billion. The company expects the full year’s revenue to be around $13.03 billion, close to analysts’ estimates. Its non-GAAP profit of $5.03 per share was 2.3% below analysts’ consensus estimates.
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Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) Q4 CY2025 Highlights:
- Revenue: $3.19 billion vs analyst estimates of $3.16 billion (9.5% year-on-year growth, 1.1% beat)
- Adjusted EPS: $5.03 vs analyst expectations of $5.15 (2.3% miss)
- Adjusted Operating Income: $1.37 billion vs analyst estimates of $1.47 billion (43% margin, 6.8% miss)
- Operating Margin: 37.8%, up from 35.2% in the same quarter last year
- Market Capitalization: $117 billion
Company Overview
Founded in 1989 with a mission to create medicines that treat the underlying causes of disease rather than just symptoms, Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX) develops and markets transformative medicines for serious diseases, with a focus on cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease, and pain management.
Revenue Growth
Examining a company’s long-term performance can provide clues about its quality. Any business can have short-term success, but a top-tier one grows for years. Over the last five years, Vertex Pharmaceuticals grew its sales at a solid 14.1% compounded annual growth rate. Its growth beat the average healthcare company and shows its offerings resonate with customers, a helpful starting point for our analysis.
Long-term growth is the most important, but within healthcare, a half-decade historical view may miss new innovations or demand cycles. Vertex Pharmaceuticals’s annualized revenue growth of 10.3% over the last two years is below its five-year trend, but we still think the results were respectable. 
This quarter, Vertex Pharmaceuticals reported year-on-year revenue growth of 9.5%, and its $3.19 billion of revenue exceeded Wall Street’s estimates by 1.1%.
Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 5.9% over the next 12 months, a deceleration versus the last two years. We still think its growth trajectory is satisfactory given its scale and implies the market is baking in success for its products and services.
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Adjusted Operating Margin
Vertex Pharmaceuticals has been a well-oiled machine over the last five years. It demonstrated elite profitability for a healthcare business, boasting an average adjusted operating margin of 39.2%.
Looking at the trend in its profitability, Vertex Pharmaceuticals’s adjusted operating margin decreased by 11.8 percentage points over the last five years. This raises questions about the company’s expense base because its revenue growth should have given it leverage on its fixed costs, resulting in better economies of scale and profitability.
This quarter, Vertex Pharmaceuticals generated an adjusted operating margin profit margin of 43%, up 1.8 percentage points year on year. This increase was a welcome development and shows it was more efficient.
Earnings Per Share
We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) for the same reason as long-term revenue growth. Compared to revenue, however, EPS highlights whether a company’s growth is profitable.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals’s spectacular 12.3% annual EPS growth over the last five years aligns with its revenue performance. This tells us it maintained its per-share profitability as it expanded.
In Q4, Vertex Pharmaceuticals reported adjusted EPS of $5.03, up from $3.98 in the same quarter last year. Despite growing year on year, this print missed analysts’ estimates, but we care more about long-term adjusted EPS growth than short-term movements. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Vertex Pharmaceuticals’s full-year EPS of $18.41 to grow 8.2%.
Key Takeaways from Vertex Pharmaceuticals’s Q4 Results
It was good to see Vertex Pharmaceuticals narrowly top analysts’ revenue expectations this quarter. On the other hand, its EPS missed. Overall, this was a weaker quarter. The stock remained flat at $463.49 immediately after reporting.
So should you invest in Vertex Pharmaceuticals right now? The latest quarter does matter, but not nearly as much as longer-term fundamentals and valuation, when deciding if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).
