Cramer: This Growth Story Is Far From Over

A few months after "Mad Money" began airing on CNBC in 2005, host Jim Cramer recommended little known biotech Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, then trading at less than $5 a share.

"It was pure speculation," recalled Cramer on Thursday's broadcast. "The company didn't have a single drug on the market. They had been toiling for about 17 years and at that point they'd come up with nothing that they were able to commercialize."

Since then, though, Regeneron's stock has been on a tear. It's climbed a whopping 3,400 percent. The stock was the single best performer in the NASDAQ last year, up 209 percent. REGN has been stalling a bit lately, though, up just 2 percent year-to-date.

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Regeneron has certainly made a big move, yet Cramer thinks it still has room to run.

Cramer noted the company's sales of its new Eylea eye drug for the leading cause of blindness in the elderly has continued to soar. Eylea, which improves vision in patients with age-related macular degeneration, saw U.S. sales rise to $276 million in the fourth quarter despite major storms that disrupted business in the Northeast during the period. Eylea sales were $244 million in the previous quarter. The biotechnology company reaffirmed the 2013 Eylea sales forecast of $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion it issued in January.

Cramer is also hopeful about the drug Zaltrap, which was approved in the United States in August to treat colorectal cancer. It had sales of $23 million for its first full quarter. Last month, European regulators approved the drug.

"Beyond these drugs, though, Regeneron is a research and development machine," Cramer added. "The company has an incredibly antibody discovery platform that drives its new drug pipeline and this platform is so good that Sanofi made a deal with Regeneron to provide $160 million in annual funding for preclinical work."

Looking forward, Cramer noted Regeneron has a number of potentially hot drugs, which could net the company millions of dollars.

So what's the bottom line?

"You know I hate to chase and only a handful of stocks are up as much as Regeneron over the past eight years. But this biotech play is a real up and comer and I think it's not finished going higher," Cramer said. "Put simply, the Regeneron growth story is far from over."

— Reuters contributed to this report

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