Health and Healthcare

Is It Finally Time to Buy Into Mylan?

Chris Lange

Published: March 6, 2018 11:30 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 2:43 am

Shares of Mylan N.V. (NASDAQ: MYL) jumped on Tuesday after a key analyst came forward in favor of this pharmaceutical giant. This stock has been through the ringer over the past couple of years, but by the looks of it, Mylan could be turning around.

In the past 52 weeks, the stock is down about 8%. However, the past six months boast a gain of 32%. For those that might not remember, Mylan faced a lot of difficulty at the hands of the U.S. Senate committees regarding its pricing of the EpiPen.

This scrutiny came at a time when pressing major pharma companies was in vogue in Washington, but this sentiment seems to have died down in the wake proposed steel tariffs and gun politics, among other things.

As a result, Morgan Stanley’s David Risinger upgraded Mylan to an Overweight rating from Equal Weight and raised the price target to $50 from $39. He also lifted his earnings estimates for the pharma stock through 2020.

It’s worth pointing out that this is the first time that Risinger has recommended Mylan in his three years covering the stock.

His reasoning? Risinger noted greater confidence in Mylan’s growth prospects relative to its peers, not to mention optimism in its pipeline. Specifically, he pointed to competitors such as Teva facing restructuring issues, Sandoz selling its oral generics unit and Apotex dealing with leadership challenges.

A few other analysts have weighed in on Mylan recently:

• Cantor Fitzgerald has a Hold rating with a $41 price target.
• JPMorgan has a Buy rating with a $53 price target.
• Susquehanna has a Positive rating with a $55 price target.
• Deutsche Bank has a Buy rating with a $50 price target.

Shares of Mylan were up about 4.5% at $43.41 on Tuesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $49.10 and a 52-week range of $29.39 to $47.82.