For a company like Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX), 10 years isn't a long time. The drug-development process takes between 12 and 14 years, on average, around 8 years of which are devoted to clinical-stage testing and the regulatory-review process. That means the Vertex of today could well be an entirely different business in a decade's time, which can make it hard to plan for making a long-term investment. 

Luckily, with a little bit of diligence, we can map out roughly where a drug company is trying to go, and we can even make a few solid predictions about how successful it'll be in those attempts, so that you can judge whether it might be a worthy addition to your portfolio. Let's dive in and see what the future could look like for this innovative drug developer. 

Our starting point for projecting Vertex's future is the reasonable assumption that at least some of its early-stage clinical programs will make it to the market and generate fresh revenue by 2032. It might even commercialize some of its more advanced pre-clinical projects, too. 

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Source Fool.com