AstraZeneca: Broad Late-Stage Pipeline, Emerging Obesity Franchise, and Autoimmune CAR-T Platform Support Upside and Buy Rating

Analyst Sachin Jain of Bank of America Securities reiterated a Buy rating on AstraZeneca, retaining the price target of p16,500.00.

Sachin Jain has given his Buy rating due to a combination of factors that, in his view, position AstraZeneca for attractive upside versus its current share price. He highlights the strength and breadth of the company’s late-stage BioPharma pipeline, with particular emphasis on tozorakimab in COPD, where differentiated biology, cleaner event-rate dynamics, and a focused trial design in former smokers support confidence despite failures of rival IL‑33/ST2 programs. He also points to eplontersen in ATTR‑CM, where a larger cardiovascular outcomes study and explicit evaluation in patients on tafamidis increase the chances of demonstrating a meaningful incremental benefit, with further upside from follow‑on depleter and combination approaches beyond 2027.

In addition, Jain underscores AstraZeneca’s emerging obesity franchise, expecting Phase II readouts on three assets by end‑2026 and seeing meaningful potential in the oral GLP‑1 program, a selective amylin agonist, and the GLP‑1/glucagon agent AZD9550, now being advanced as a stand‑alone therapy. He notes a deep respiratory and immunology pipeline, including an inhaled TSLP inhibitor, an inhaled JAK1 inhibitor, and a FLAP inhibitor, which could expand AstraZeneca’s leadership in asthma. Finally, he cites the company’s early but promising work in CAR‑T for autoimmune diseases, with multiple studies underway in systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis and AL amyloidosis, as an additional long‑term growth pillar that, together with the rest of the pipeline, supports his Buy rating and price objective above the current market level.

In another report released yesterday, J.P. Morgan also maintained a Buy rating on the stock with a £160.00 price target.