BioNTech upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JPMorgan

JPMorgan upgraded BioNTech to Neutral from Underweight with a price target of $125, up from $91. The company presented multiple updates on its oncology pipeline and JPMorgan is “particularly impressed” by some of the Phase II and Phase I/II data that has been coming out for BNT327/PM8002, the anti-VEGF-A/PD-L1 bispecific, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm sees BioNTech as a company that needs to diversify beyond COVID, and its cautious view on the stock had centered on the lack of sufficient randomized data from the oncology pipeline to instill confidence in that transition and shift the narrative. It now thinks BNT327 “could be a fly-wheel product” that potentially provides BioNTech “with not only a string of interesting clinical updates in the near-term, but also meaningful diversification away from the COVID vaccine business in the second half of this decade.”