AstraZeneca has added more than 2% after more positive drug news.
A diabetes drug developed by Astra and Bristol-Myers Squibb, dapagliflozin, has been recommended for approval by an advisory panel to the US Food and Drug Administration. The move comes two years after it was rejected by regulators on safety grounds, saying there was not enough clinical data.
Separately Astra announced positive results from a late stage clinical trial of an experimental gout drug, lesinurad. However it is awaiting results from three further trials before assessing its commercial potential.
Astra shares have climbed 76.5p to 3534.5p. Analyst Savvas Neophytou raised his forecasts on the news but kept his sell rating:
After waiting for an eternity, it would appear two pieces of good news emerge on the same day from AstraZeneca's pipeline. It allows us to push through upgrades, importantly both these items provide some partial risk mitigation to the risk profile of the company's contracting revenue base. We upgrade our core earnings per share forecast by 0.7%, 2.8% and 8.6% in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively. Our forecasts for each of these years now reads $4.86 (from $4.83), $4.36 (from $4.14) and $3.47 (from $3.19). This allows us to increase our price target to £32.00 (from £31.00 previously) but re-iterate our sell recommendation.
