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In Brief
- Healthcare stocks rebounded in 2025, but select growth names are emerging outside traditional biotech.
- Medical technology and healthcare services offer recurring revenue and lower binary risk.
- Intuitive Surgical, Edwards Lifesciences, and IQVIA provide different paths to long-term healthcare growth.
Healthcare stocks rallied in 2025, breaking a two-year slump as investors chased steadier rates, better valuations, and improving earnings. The problem: mid-single-digit gains still lagged tech, leaving the sector feeling like a missed opportunity.
For investors still hunting for healthcare growth, the answer doesn’t have to lie in the high-risk, high-reward world of biotech. Instead of betting on binary clinical-trial outcomes, many are rotating into MedTech and healthcare services—areas built on procedure volume, recurring revenue, and “tools-and-infrastructure” demand that can scale without the same make-or-break drug risk.
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Where Investors Are Looking Beyond Biotechnology
Earnings season can sometimes reveal themes. One healthcare-related theme seems to have emerged this season, based on the earnings results of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ).
Since spinning off its consumer products division, J&J has focused on innovative medicine and medical technology (medtech). In 2025, the company’s MedTech sales were up 6.1% to $33.8 billion, with $8.8 billion of that total coming in the just-finished fourth quarter.
Investors are warming up to medtech, but they're not stopping there—they’re also seeing potential in companies that offer healthcare services and tools.
Could this trend lead to a rotation beyond biotechnology to other high-growth areas in the healthcare field? If so, three companies are exceptionally well-positioned to capitalize on those gains this earnings season.
Intuitive Surgical: Procedure Growth Drives Recurring Revenue
Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG) remains one of the clearest long-term growth stories in healthcare. The company’s da Vinci robotic surgery systems continue to benefit from rising global procedure volumes as hospitals prioritize minimally invasive surgeries that shorten recovery times and improve outcomes.
What makes Intuitive Surgical especially attractive to growth-minded investors is its razor-and-blades business model. The company’s real earnings power comes from recurring revenue tied to instruments, accessories, and services used in every procedure. Thus, as utilization rises, margins tend to expand in synchrony.
In 2025, procedure growth accelerated as hospitals worked through staffing challenges and surgical backlogs that had built up in prior years. International adoption also remained a key driver, expanding the company’s addressable market.
That growth, however, didn’t show up in the ISRG stock price, which is down over 17% in the last 12 months. And that’s where the opportunity lies. Analysts give ISRG a consensus price target of $622.17, which is an upside of over 18%. And even at 69x times earnings, the stock is still undervalued compared to its history.
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Edwards Lifesciences: Structural Heart Innovation Fuels Growth
Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE: EW) is a global leader in structural heart therapies, particularly transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), a procedure that continues to gain adoption as clinical data supports its use in lower-risk patients.
That expanding patient pool is critical. As populations age, demand for less invasive cardiac procedures is increasing, and Edwards is well-positioned to benefit.
In 2025, the company delivered steady growth as procedure volumes normalized and hospitals resumed capital investments after several cautious years.
Beyond TAVR, Edwards Lifesciences is investing in next-generation valve platforms and expanding its presence in mitral and tricuspid therapies, which represent large, underpenetrated markets.
EW stock jumped over 21% in the last 12 months. However, analysts still give the stock a consensus price target of $96.82, which represents about 13% upside. Unlike Intuitive Surgical, though, investors will have to decide whether to pay a premium for the stock, as it is highly valued relative to its history.
IQVIA: The Picks-and-Shovels Play on Healthcare Innovation
IQVIA (NYSE: IQV) provides data analytics, clinical trial management, and outsourced research services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide. IQVIA’s services are becoming increasingly mission-critical as drug pipelines grow more complex.
In 2025, IQVIA benefited from a gradual recovery in clinical trial activity after several years of budget discipline across biotech. As financing conditions improved and large pharmaceutical companies advanced late-stage programs, demand for IQVIA’s contract research and real-world evidence platforms increased.
What makes IQVIA especially attractive is its highly recurring revenue model and deep integration with customers’ workflows. Switching costs are high, and long-term contracts provide investors with earnings visibility.
IQV stock is up 17% in the last 12 months, close to the S&P 500 average. Still, the consensus price target suggests about 3% more upside, with many respected analysts going out on a limb to call for targets that are as much as 10%, 15%, or even 20% above where IQV trades today.
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