Merck shares positioned for further upside, says JPMorgan

JPMorgan keeps an Overweight rating on Merck with a $125 price target after meeting with management. The meetings highlighted a team that appears increasingly confident in its ability to manage through the 2028/2030 Keytruda loss of exclusivity through a combination of an emerging mid-to-late-stage pipeline and ongoing business development, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm remains bullish on Merck and sees the combination of potential upside to core results and a series of 2023/2024 pipeline catalysts driving the shares higher. It continues to see Merck as having "one of the clearest paths to upside to numbers in the group."