2026: THE YEAR THAT PATIENCE PAYS OFF?

You know the old saying…if at first you don’t succeed, try try again.  2026 may finally be the year that this saying proves true. In a stock market that is generally overheated, overhyped and overpriced, these three stocks can be purchased at reasonable prices, because their long and torturous roads have turned off many investors. Where short term investors see only challenges, the long term investor recognizes opportunity. These three fledgling companies may finally be turning the corner towards profitability, representing a buying opportunity for the astute biotech investor. 

By the Sick Economist 

Mesoblast, Limited

Mesoblast knows a thing or two about setbacks, and how to overcome them. The small Australian company is a pioneer in the field of Mesenchymal Lineage Adult Stem Cell. These are specially engineered stem cells endowed with the capability to reduce inflammation in the human body.   These factory made, “off the shelf” cells have multiple applications, and Mesoblast has produced exciting data indicating game changing applications in heart failure, spine pain, and immunocompromised patients. 

The company’s longest journey so far has been the regulatory odyssey towards approval for Graft Vs. Host disease. This is a devastating condition by which the human body rejects bone marrow transplants, widely leading to death and disability. The disease can be especially cruel for children who have received bone marrow transplants to fight cancer and other life crushing diseases. 

Despite producing solid clinical data indicating that the company’s stem cell solution works more than 70% of the time, the small firm was hit with several roadblocks by the FDA, often related to the company’s novel manufacturing process, or the need for larger data sets to prove the efficacy of this innovative treatment. With each delay, Mesoblast’s meager corporate treasury ran lower and lower, and the business was close to running out of money. 

All of this changed on December 18th, 2024, when, after more than ten years of trying, Mesoblast finally received FDA approval for the use of its stemcell treatments in pediatric Graft Vs. Host Disease.  

Even after the company received FDA marketing approval, all kinds of things could have gone wrong. Any seasoned biotech investor will tell you that a simple FDA approval does not necessarily mean a viable, financially successful product launch. 

But now, Mesoblast has cleared that hurdle as well. In the company’s latest financial report, the business raked in $17.2 million, as opposed to $5.9 million the prior year, and $0 the year before that. This was the revenue of only half of a year, with the availability of the new product, now dubbed Ryoncil, still limited. Over the next year, the firm aims to receive approval for the product in adults as well, and they estimate the total market for GVHD, in children and adults, adds up to about $1 billion dollars. So, with just this one clinical field, Mesoblast could plausibly grow sales by 1000% or more from here. 

But the pugnacious little company has no intention of stopping with just one disease state. The firm is also close to gaining approval in the fields of heart failure and back pain. These are all disease states related to chronic inflammation, and the firm has produced solid data to submit to the FDA. The firm is now playing in markets that could easily add up to $5 billion in sales. Given that biotech firms are often valued at five times sales, that means that the company could eventually be worth $25 billion, or 10 times its current value. 

Potential inventors should understand that Mesoblast is still a speculative play; they are still losing money, and approval in three new disease states is never a guarantee. However the firm has demonstrated a consistent ability to come back from failure, and investors can now see real sales, with real cash flow, coming into the business. 2026 could be a “turning point” year where a bunch of patents and research go from having theoretical value to hard cash in your hand; always an exciting moment for an enterprising investor.  

Twist Bioscience

If Mesoblast is an example of a speculative company that is finally establishing a bona fide viable product line, then Twist Bioscience is an example of a company ready to take the next step. Twist has had viable and in demand products for quite some time, but they are just now approaching profitability. 

Twist Bioscience is a firm that manufactures and sells DNA used by a broad array of life science companies in their experiments and trials. As amazing as this sounds, Twist has demonstrated an ability to crank out DNA samples for quite some time. What they have not demonstrated is an ability to manufacture, sell and ship the DNA profitably. This may finally be changing. 

For an in depth analysis of the Twist’s financial history, check out this post by our analyst Grant Bailey.  But suffice it to say, the company’s revenue keeps growing by double digits on an annual basis, and the company’s gross margins also keep growing, now coming close to 51% on each and every sale.  As production volume grows and grows, the company expects to realize evermore economies of scale, and thus larger gross profit margins. 

For 2025, Twist notched $376 million in revenue. Some analysts peg the total market for synthetic DNA products at about $5 billion dollars and growing. This means that, if Twist can continue to grow sales with a substantial gross margin, the company could easily capture $1 billion or more in sales in a few years time. If we apply a metric of five times revenue (a common metric for growing biotech firms) then we get a total valuation of $5 billion, or about 2.5 times the current share price. 

Like anything in business, there are no guarantees. But after many many years of trying, it looks like Twist shareholders finally own a business that is both growing and profitable. More proof that patience is simply written into the DNA of any good investor. 

Crispr Therapeutics 

If both Mesoblast and Twist have had their ups and downs, Crispr Therapeutics is the very definition of an epic struggle. Once the darling of both Wall Street and the Ivy League biotech scene, Crispr has caused more than a few investors to pull their hair out, as the early promise of Crispr gene editing has hit many more setbacks than anticipated. But lately, the firm has unveiled some exciting new data that seems to prove, definitively, that Crispr Gene editing is here to stay. 

Simply put, Crispr is a new kind of tool that helps scientists edit the human genome with far greater speed and accuracy than ever before. The fundamental technique was published in 2012 by Professors Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier. Carpentier then went on to found Crispir Therapeutics Inc, to capitalize on these scientific leap forward. In 2020 both professors were awarded the Nobel Prize for their discoveries. 

Who doesn’t love the idea of a Nobel Laureate introducing a new technology to change medicine forever? The company went public in 2016, and by 2021, the stock had skyrocketed from $22 to as high as $199.  

But it wasn’t to last. The company hit a number of safety roadblocks, and the industry, as a whole, became more competitive. The company did manage to launch what should have been a game changing, one time treatment for sickle cell anemia, but the commercial launch has been slower than expected. This has meant that the company has lost substantial sums of money in 8 out of the last 10 years it has been public. 

Investor interest in the entire gene editing sector has waned as progress has been slow, and today, the firm’s stock price has shriveled to reflect that disappointment, falling all the way to $57 from that previously mentioned all time high of $199. A lot of investors have sold and moved on to other new technologies, feeling burned. 

But now CRISPR may be ready to stage a big comeback. In November of 2025, the company announced some blockbuster results from a phase one trial of a novel agent: A one time dose of a drug named CTX310 was able to dramatically improve the lipid numbers for cardiovascular patients who had not been able to achieve clinical goals on other, more common heart medications. These powerful improvements seem to be durable, and may even be permanent. It’s very possible that, with a single gene edit, CRISPR may be able to functionally cure millions of cardiovascular patients, replacing a lifetime of taking three or more medications at a time. The downstream reductions in heart attacks and strokes could dramatically increase life expectancy in hundreds of millions, if not billions, of patients around the world. 

Of course this is only a phase 1 study, so nothing is a sure bet, yet. But the principle has been proven and the big hope certainly seems renewed: it may well be possible to cure millions of people of common diseases with a simple gene edit. We are talking about fundamentally fixing a widespread medical problem, as opposed to merely treating the symptoms forever. 

According to the company, up to 40,000,000 Americans currently are not able to fully control their lipids with standard cardiovascular therapies. If CRISPR could one day receive a one time payment of $10,000 to fix each of these patients, that would add up to $400 billion dollars in revenue! The company is currently valued at about $5 billion. So, if experimental treatment CTX310 captures even a sliver of that massive market, the company’s value could quadruple with ease. 

If there is one thing that intrepid investors in the gene editing field have learned, it’s that patience is necessary if you want to change the field of medicine forever. And, even after all of the challenges. CRISPR Therapeutics can still afford to be patient. In the first 9 months of 2025, the company lost about $450 million, but the firm still has almost $2 billion in cash in the bank, and no debt. Thus, the company can afford to tinker with CTX 310 and other new medicines for quite some time. Additionally, if CRISPR Therapeutics continues to crank out this kind of blockbuster data, the whole company would be an attractive take over target for a Big Pharma company that seeks to be the disruptor, rather than the disrupted, in the lucrative world of cardiovascular medicine. 

The rock band AC/DC used to sing, 

“Its a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.”  And indeed, it’s been one long, tough slog for the three companies described above. Luckily, they all enjoy patient management teams and an investor base that has stuck with them through thick and thin. If you admire grit and perseverance, these scrappy start ups could be just the purchase to start off your 2026.