Goldman Sachs has raised its recommendation for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) from "Sell", published in July 2013, to "Neutral", following the same upgrades by Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan. No investment bank now gives a negative recommendation for Teva.
Goldman Sachs analyst Jami Rubin also raised her target price for Teva from $40 to $52. Teva closed at $49.91 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, after a gain of 1.1%, giving a market cap of $42.3 billion.
"We expect the narrative around Teva to change from concerns around a declining Copaxone franchise to growth and optionality in the underlying business," says Rubin. "It is well known that Copaxone is declining (even with a strong 3-times-a-week launch). That said, the underlying business has optionality cost cutting, potential to narrow R&D focus, potential divestitures and the new management team has expressed an increased openness to M&A, one of the key drivers of sector performance."
She adds, "Since we downgraded Teva to "Sell" on July 29, 2013, shares have been up 24% versus the 63% by our specialty pharma names and the 10% gain by the S&P 500."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 19, 2014
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