BMO lowers Amgen, BioNTech to Market Perform as risk-reward shifts

BMO Capital Markets downgraded Amgen and BioNTech to Market Perform from Outperform on Tuesday, saying the biopharma companies now offer limited near-term upside and a more balanced risk-reward profile.

BMO analyst Evan Seigerman cut Amgen’s rating while keeping a price target of $450. He said commercial execution is now the base case for the stock, which is up 34% year-to-date and has outperformed both the broader S&P 500 and the NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical indexes.

Seigerman noted Amgen continues to face significant loss-of-exclusivity headwinds, with pressure visible on Prolia/XGEVA, Enbrel, Otezla and Kyprolis. He said the obesity drug MariTide “offers a potentially differentiated profile with less frequent dosing,” but Phase 2 efficacy and tolerability data leave questions about its competitiveness against established injectable and oral therapies.

Amgen shares fell more than 5% in premarket trading Tuesday, a drop primarily driven by Novartis’ announcement that its cholesterol drug pelacarsen failed in a closely watched study. That failure raised concerns about Amgen’s experimental cholesterol drug olpasiran.

JPMorgan analysts said the Novartis pelacarsen results lower expectations for olpasiran ahead of late-stage data expected in late 2027 or early 2028. The brokerage said it is less convinced the drug’s effect would be “clinically meaningful enough to translate to a significant commercial opportunity,” even if olpasiran shows a stronger signal than pelacarsen.

Separately, BMO cut BioNTech to Market Perform from Outperform and lowered its price target to $105 from a prior level. The brokerage cited stronger-than-expected erosion of COVID vaccine Comirnaty, a lack of de-risking data for cancer drug pumitamig until 2028, and reduced expectations for the company’s mRNA-based iNeST program.

BioNTech’s Comirnaty revenue guidance has been cut repeatedly, most recently by $400 million to $1.75 billion at the midpoint, on softer global COVID vaccine demand and a German inventory drawdown. BMO now models Comirnaty revenue of about $629 million in 2027, below consensus of $850 million.

On pumitamig, Seigerman said the drug “looks good, but ‘good’ isn’t differentiated in a crowding field,” pointing to competitive data from Pfizer and AbbVie/RemeGen in non-small cell lung cancer. He added that BioNTech’s cash position, exceeding $16 billion, provides a floor for the stock, “but upside may be more challenged.”