BMO Downgrades Amgen and BioNTech to Market Perform

BMO Capital Markets has downgraded its rating on biopharma companies Amgen and BioNTech to Market Perform from Outperform, citing limited near-term upside and a more balanced risk-reward.

The analyst Evan Seigerman cut Amgen's rating while maintaining a price target of $450. He said commercial execution is now the base case for the stock, with shares up 34% year-to-date, outperforming the broader S&P 500 and the NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical indexes.

Amgen continues to face significant loss-of-exclusivity headwinds, Seigerman said, with pressure visible on Prolia/XGEVA, Enbrel, Otezla and Kyprolis. He noted that Amgen's 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.

The company's experimental cholesterol drug olpasiran has also come under scrutiny, following Novartis' announcement that its cholesterol drug pelacarsen failed in a closely watched study. JPMorgan analysts said the failure lowered expectations for olpasiran ahead of late-stage data expected in late 2027 or early 2028.

Separately, BMO cut BioNTech to Market Perform from Outperform and lowered its price target to $105 from a prior level, citing 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.