What Makes Ligand Pharmaceuticals (LGND) an Investment Choice?

Summers Value Partners, an investment management company, released its third-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The Summers Value Fund LP returned a net return of 20.4% net in Q3 2025, surpassing the 12.4% return of the Russell 2000 Index ETF (IWM) and the 12.5% return for the Russell 2000 Value Index ETF (IWN). Year-to-date, the fund is up 4.9% net compared to 10.3% and 8.9% returns for the indexes, respectively. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to find out its best picks for 2025.

In its third-quarter 2025 investor letter, Summers Value Partners highlighted stocks such as Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:LGND). Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:LGND) is a biopharmaceutical company that operates biopharmaceutical assets. The one-month return of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:LGND) was 11.58%, and its shares gained 85.60% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On November 18, 2025, Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:LGND) stock closed at $207.05 per share, with a market capitalization of $4.075 billion.

Summers Value Partners stated the following regarding Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:LGND) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:

“Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:LGND) operates a unique business model within the pharmaceutical industry as a royalty aggregator, requiring very little capital to grow because its partners fund product development and commercialization expenses. We previously owned BioSpecifics and Emisphere, also pharmaceutical royalty companies. They were both acquired during our ownership generating attractive returns for our investors.

Our investment thesis on Ligand centered on the launch of Ohtuvaryre for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and Filspari for nephropathy. We believed both drugs were positioned to drive stronger than-anticipated results for Ligand over the long run. They have performed exceptionally well so far, with Ohtuvaryre among the strongest pharmaceutical launches in recent years. We expect each drug to reach blockbuster status ($1 billion-dollar plus) over time.

In December, Ligand will host an analyst day. We anticipate management will raise its long-term financial targets based on the success of Ohtuvaryre and Filspari and maintain our $250 price target.”

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Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:LGND) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. According to our database, 9 hedge fund portfolios held Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:LGND) at the end of the second quarter, compared to 11 in the previous quarter. In the third quarter of 2025, Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:LGND) reported total revenue and other income, on a GAAP basis, of $115.5 million, compared to $51.8 million in Q3 2024. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:LGND) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:LGND) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.