2 Dirt Cheap Healthcare Stocks to Buy With $1,000 Right Now

Shares of Cencora (NYSE: COR) and Stevanato Group (NYSE: STVN) are down more than 17% and 5%, respectively, so far this year. This is despite solid first-quarter earnings and steady business models.

Cencora, formerly known as AmerisourceBergen, is one of the dominant forces in the global pharmaceutical supply chain. Together with McKesson and Cardinal Health, it forms an effective triopoly that distributes roughly 90% of all medicines in the United States.

Italian-based Stevanato is a dominant company in the drug containment and delivery systems sector. The healthcare conglomerate manufactures prefilled syringes, vials, cartridges, and complex autoinjectors used by major pharmaceutical companies.

A few reasons to buy each stock:

Cencora just upgraded its 2026 earnings guidance

Cencora reported its second-quarter results on May 6, and a few weeks later, raised its full-year fiscal 2026 adjusted diluted earnings per share (EPS) guidance to a range of $17.70 to $17.90, up from the previous $17.65 to $17.90.

In the second quarter, Cencora reported revenue of $78.4 billion, up 3.8% year over year, primarily thanks to a 13% increase in its International Healthcare Solutions revenue and a 2.9% rise in U.S. Healthcare Solutions segment revenue.

EPS rose 128% over the same quarter a year ago, to $8.40, though much of that was an accounting gain related to the company's $7.4 billion purchase of OneOncology in February. A more accurate indication of profitability in this case would be its adjusted EPS of $4.75, which is still up 7.5% year over year.

The company is taking advantage of its reduced share price

The company has paid down its debt, and that is allowing it to reward shareholders with stock buybacks. It is on track to repurchase $1 billion in shares by the end of calendar 2026 and authorized an additional $2 billion share buyback in late May.

These buybacks reduce the overall share count, providing a structural lift to EPS and demonstrating management's high conviction in the stock's undervaluation.

The stock is undervalued considering its high-margin growth

The biggest knock on traditional pharmaceutical wholesalers is their notoriously razor-thin profit margins, which usually hover around 1%. However, Cencora has been aggressively expanding into high-margin specialty pharmaceutical distribution and services, including its purchase of OneOncology, which provides higher-margin oncology treatments. In the most recent quarter, its gross profit margin climbed 45 basis points year over year to 4.31%.

The stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of roughly 15.5, discounting it against its direct peers and even the broader healthcare sector, which is lower at 17.8 than it is historically.

Stevanato benefits as a pick-and-shovel GLP-1 company

The biggest growth engine in global pharmaceuticals right now is the explosion of GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes treatments such as Wegovy and Zepbound. While investors often crowd into the drugmakers themselves, Stevanato Group represents an exceptionally stable play on this multibillion-dollar market.

In the first quarter, GLP-1 products accounted for 21% to 22% of Stevanato's total revenue. Because these complex biologics require highly precise, specialized glass cartridges and automated assembly devices, Stevanato has secured multi-year medical devices supply agreements with the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, providing strong long-term revenue visibility.

The company has found a path to higher margins

Stevanato has moved beyond its base of glass vials and is seeing higher margins from growth in its High-Value Solutions segment, which includes proprietary, specialized containment systems such as its signature EZ-fill pre-fillable syringes and next-gen cartridges. Driven by the biologics boom, its HVS segment grew 17% year over year to account for 47% of the company's revenue. The company also expanded its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) margin by 150 basis points to 23.9% in its latest quarter, showing that it is becoming more profitable as it scales.

In the quarter, overall revenue was up 7% over the same period a year ago, to 273.6 million euros, while EPS was flat at 0.10 euros, thanks to heavy spending on upgrading its manufacturing plants in Indiana, Italy, and Germany. Now that those improvements are mostly complete, the company stands to benefit from greater efficiency.

With full-year 2026 guidance projecting revenue of up to 1.29 billion euros and adjusted EPS of 0.63 euros, up from 1.186 billion euros and 0.54 euros in 2025, the stock offers a highly attractive entry point as its massive manufacturing investments begin paying off.

Two good choices, neither of them wrong

Neither one of these stocks is a flashy hyper-growth tech stock. They are highly defensive, stable healthcare companies with expansive economic moats. Cencora is seeing margin gains from its OneOncology purchase, but those gains haven't yet been reflected in investor sentiment.

Stevanato, as the lesser-known company, at least in the U.S., is being overlooked more and represents a better buy than Cencora, considering Stevanato's likely growth prospects from GLP-1 injectables.

James Halley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends McKesson. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.