AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) was in favour today after much better results from a breast cancer treatment trial sparked a raft of upgrades.
Pfizer presented the Paloma-3 data at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) annual meeting, which showed that combined with Astra’s Faslodex, its Ibrance drug prolonged the life of sufferers by five months.
UBS said this is not only excellent news for Prizer and and breast cancer patients, but also for Astra Faslodex as PALOMA-3 should not only result in increased use of but also substantially extend Faslodex treatment duration.
That could see Faslodex double sales over previous expectations between 2018-2020 with a 2- 3% boost to group sales.
Buy with a price target of 5,500p says the broker.
Jeffries, meanwhile, sees Astra as a front runner in the race to address one of the largest immuno-oncology market opportunities in small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
“We were positively surprised by updated data from the Phase Ib study of MEDI4736 (anti-PD-L1) in combination with tremelimumab”
“We believe that the solid efficacy and safety data presented, particularly in patients with PD-L1 -ve NSCLC sets AstraZeneca up with a significant and palpable opportunity, said the broker.
‘Buy. with a price target of 5,600p is its view.
Jefferies also reckons support services provider DCC (LON:DCC) is firing on all cylinders, and has hiked up the price target to 5,900p from 4,500p previously. The rating is 'buy'.
It comes after record full year 2015 numbers for the FTSE 250 group, profit growth and improving ROCE across all divisions, along with the £338mln acquisition of Shell's Butagaz LPG business.
This will expand DCC's LPG volumes by over 70% to 1.2mln tonnes.
Conversely, Swiss broker UBS downgrades Homeserve (LON:HOME) to 'neutral' from 'buy' after what it called a "strong run" from the group.
"Homeserve provides an appealing mix of growth potential (US) supported by strong cash generation from the stabilised UK business," said analyst Angus Staines.
The target price moves to 420p from 385p.
In another downgrade, Goldman has downgraded low- cost carrier Ryanair Holdings (LON:RYA) to 'neutral' from 'buy'.
JP Morgan Cazenove retains an 'overweight' stance on Big Yellow Group (LON:BYG) looking at European property and lifts target price to 780p from 715p.
Westhouse has kept its buy rating and target price of 29p on Circle Oil (LON:COP) after the appointment of new chief executive Mitch Flegg, formerly with Serica Energy.
“We like Circle Oil based upon its solid delivery and significant upside but the company needs to progress the potentially very significant Mahdia discovery in 2015 for this upside to be realised.”
Northland has welcomed the latest step by Motif Bio (LON:MTFB) towards setting up the Phase III trial for iclaprim, Motif’s late clinical-stage antibiotic.
“Given the major global public health crisis driven by rampant antibiotic resistance, there is a massive market opportunity for iclaprim whose safety and efficacy is well supported with successful tests on more than a thousand patients.”
Buy with an 89p price target.