Healthcare stock AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) managed to land a decent win with testing on its Tagrisso lung cancer drug. That should have been good enough news for almost anyone, but not so much for AstraZeneca investors, who sent shares down over 2% in Monday afternoon’s trading.
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The reports out of AstraZeneca’s Phase 3 trial—known as FLAURA2—were fairly encouraging. Tagrisso—a tyrosine kinase inhibitor—worked well, particularly when used along with chemotherapy. It didn’t so much treat the cancer as it did protect the user; those using chemo and Tagrisso together lived longer without the cancer getting worse than it was at the time of treatment. The data was regarded as “immature” at the time, though, which tainted its value somewhat.
That’s not all that’s been going on for AstraZeneca, though. There’s word that current CEO, Pascal Soriot, wants out of the company. That’s based on some leaked private communications, but it was enough to give investors a bit of a fright. Further, AstraZeneca also inked a new deal with Verge Genomics to use artificial intelligence (AI) to discover and create new drugs to take on a slate of different diseases. That added up to concern from investors, though likely tempered with optimism.
Analysts, however, are less concerned overall. Analyst consensus calls AstraZeneca stock a Moderate Buy, supported by four Buy ratings and two Holds. Further, with an average price target of $80.88, AstraZeneca stock offers investors 21.44% upside potential.
