Pfizer shares: recommendations of the best economists
Three Great News for Pfizer connoisseursZarina Saidova, Leading Analyst of the World Markets Analysis Department
IC "Finam"
The world's largest pharmaceutical company Pfizer has added at least 3 major positive news worthy of attention to its assets over the past month.
Viagra
On August 15, Pfizer released information about the victory in the litigation over the patent for the notorious drug Viagra. The court ruled that Pfizer's patent is recognized as legally valid, thereby depriving Israeli Teva Pharmaceutical of the right to sell a nonproprietary analogue of Viagra. Pfizer's annual revenue from Viagra sales in 2008-2010 was about $1.9 billion, and the patent extension until October 2019 gives the pharmaceutical giant a tangible head start – while the existing patents are in effect, to bring experimental drugs under development to the right condition to compensate for losses from competition with generics.
It is worth noting that Teva is not the only generic manufacturer that has decided to sue Pfizer over a patent for Viagra, but the defeat of such an influential Israeli company makes it clear that other smaller applicants for the sale of Viagra analogues will also not "put the world's largest pharmaceutical company on the shoulder blades."
Xalkori
On August 26, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the approval of Pfizer's drug for the treatment of lung cancer, namely its varieties – locally advanced and metastatic non-small cell. This type of cancer is caused genetically and often affects young people who do not have bad habits. It is worth noting that out of 200,000 Americans who are diagnosed with cancer every year, only 3-5% have a genetic anomaly responsible for this type of cancer, so the audience for the drug Xalkori (crizotinib) will not be extensive, but its cost is high – $ 9600 per monthly dose of treatment. With this in mind, theoretically, the annual value of Xalkori sales can reach $2 billion and above.
Eliquis
On August 28, the results of a large study were published, during which the effect of an experimental drug, the Pfizer and Bristol-Myers anticoagulant, and the standard anticoagulant warfarin, which is usually used to treat patients with life-threatening arrhythmia, was compared.
In patients taking the drug Eliquis, the probability of stroke was 21% lower than in those taking warfarin, which has many side effects. For reference, we note that warfarin was registered in the USA in 1948 as rat poison and only 6 years later it began to be prescribed for medical purposes to people.
Eliquis is not the only anticoagulant other than warfarin, but the data presented in the report suggests that this particular drug can take a leading position in this segment.
In our opinion, these three news will contribute to the consolidation of the long-term upward trend in Pfizer shares. Despite the expiring patents, Pfizer, as they say, has powder in the flasks, and the company has something to please investors. If you look from the point of view of technical analysis, the long-term positive trend line has recently been confirmed on the weekly chart, and in general there is an emerging triangle, which with minor corrections can be called ascending, i.e. foreshadowing further price growth. Moving averages with periods of 200 and 50 have recently crossed in the bullish direction ("golden cross") – over the past 20 years, these lines have crossed only a couple of times, so we can regard this as a fairly strong signal.
Source – Reuters
Pfizer shares are traditionally considered a defensive asset – firstly, it is a blue chip, and secondly, the pharmaceutical sector is stable in times of economic turbulence; the Pfizer beta indicator is 0.71, which confirms the defensive nature of this paper. We believe that with instability in the stock markets and troubles with the macroeconomic situation, such an investment as Pfizer will be very useful. This is a sound and high-quality asset for the long term.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru01.09.2011