Credit Suisse Calls Out Amgen as Its Key Cancer Winner From ASCO

Health and Healthcare

Published: June 4, 2019 11:10 am

Last Updated: January 30, 2020 8:03 pm

It has been a tough year for many members of the so-called big pharma and big biotech. Also, in recent years, the lines separating the largest biotechs from the largest drug companies have begun to blur. With almost all the major drug and biotech players now making efforts to acquire new drug pipelines, pay more dividends and make more share buybacks, the sector just feels more like “big biopharma.” Both industries also currently have low revenue growth and valuations on their earnings.

Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) is the largest of all biotechs now, with a market cap at $105 billion or so, and it is being deemed an “ASCO winner” for cancer and oncology news. At least, that is the view of Credit Suisse.

Before we get into the call, note that Amgen did manage to post a slight growth in 2018 revenues to $23.75 billion, but that’s after 2017 ticked under 2016 by a minuscule amount (to $22.85 billion). The Refinitiv consensus estimates predict revenues will fall almost 5% to $22.6 billion in 2019 and rise less than 1% to $22.75 billion in 2020. At the same time, the company’s earnings per share of $14.40 in 2018 are expected to fall to $14.00 in 2019 and then rise to $14.76 in 2020.

Credit Suisse reiterated its Outperform rating on Amgen with a $208 price target. The prior close was $172.36, and the 52-week trading range is $166.30 to $210.19.

What stood out beyond the implied upside of 20.6% is that Credit Suisse’s Evan Seigerman said that Amgen’s data was the most meaningful among its coverage universe, with the initial Phase 1 data from AMG510 in solid tumors standing out as the most important data set at ASCO. The Credit Suisse report said:

As a follow-up to the formal data presentations, we attended Amgen’s analyst and investor event following the data readouts over the weekend and on Monday. Overall, much of the commentary from the company and invited physicians was in line with what we saw during the formal data presentation, but with added nuance and context. While we thought the data from ‘510 was impressive (and the driver of share outperformance on Monday), we note that the trial remains early and questions regarding durability and applicability in tumor histology outside of lung remain. Data from AMG420 was largely an update on the data set seen at ASH in 2018; we still would like see a better safety profile and data from the HLE BCMA-targeting BiTE. Also early was data from AMG212 (pasotuxizumab), where we saw initial clinical efficacy in a BiTE targeting a solid tumor. The data sets seen at the ASCO meeting are largely supportive of our view that Amgen’s novel oncology pipeline could drive share upside near-term.

Amgen shares were last seen trading down 20 cents at $172.16, on a day when the S&P 500 was up by 1.1% and the Nasdaq was up by 1.3%. Its current $5.80 annualized dividend per share generates a yield of 3.36%, which is better than the yield on the 10-year Treasury (2.12%) and the 30-year Treasury (2.58%).

Amgen shares have traded down about 11.5% year to date, and the stock was down about 4% from this time a year ago.