Company Profile:

AstraZeneca PLC discovers, develops, and commercializes prescription medicines in the areas of oncology, cardiovascular, renal and metabolism, respiratory, autoimmunity, infection, neuroscience, and gastroenterology worldwide. Its marketed products include Arimidex, Casodex/Cosudex, Calquence, Faslodex, Imfinzi, Iressa, Lynparza, Nolvadex, Tagrisso, and Zoladex for oncology diseases; Atacand1/Atacand HCT/Atacand Plus, Brilinta/Brilique, Crestor, Plendil, Seloken/Toprol-XL, Tenormin, and Zestril for cardiovascular diseases; and Bydureon, Byetta, Farxiga/Forxiga, Kombiglyze XR, Komboglyze, Onglyza, Qtern, Symlin, Xigduo, and Xigduo XR for metabolic diseases. The company serves primary care and specialty care physicians through distributors and local representative offices. AstraZeneca PLC has a collaboration and license option agreement with Transgene SA for clinical development and commercialization of novel oncolytic immunotherapies. The company was formerly known as Zeneca Group PLC and changed its name to AstraZeneca PLC in April 1999. AstraZeneca PLC was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Cambridge, the United Kingdom.

Recent News:

In the first quarter, AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi saw sales of $295 million, mainly driven by its rapid uptake as an unresectable Stage III NSCLC[1.non-small cell lung cancer] treatment in US markets. In its first-quarter investor presentation, AstraZeneca stated that it expects Imfinzi peak sales in excess of $1.0 billion.

On Apr. 1, 2019, AstraZeneca and Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, US (known as MSD outside the US and Canada) announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD) for the investigational MEK 1/2 inhibitor and potential new medicine selumetinib.

Positive results from a pre-specified sub-analysis of the Phase III DECLARE-TIMI 58 trial showed that FARXIGA (dapagliflozin) reduced the relative risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) by 16% compared to placebo (15.2% vs 17.8%; HR 0.84, [95% CI 0.72-0.99]) in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) who had a prior heart attack (myocardial infarction).

Fundamental Analysis:

Ninestocks analyzes several different financial aspects: Growth, Profitability, solvency and efficiency.

Growth – Measures the growth of both the company’s income statement and cash flow.

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Profitability – Measures the historical price movement of the stock.

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Solvency – Measures the solvency of the company based on several ratios.

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Efficiency – Measures the strength and historic growth of a company’s return on invested capital.

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Conclusion:

AZN’s strengths can be seen in its better growth and better profitability compared with its peers. Technical indicators signal the bullish signs, as there is a bullish crossover in Stochastic oscillator, the MACD is trying to cross back up and the RSI(14) stands at 41.18 with positive bias. We rate AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) a STRONG BUY.