{"id":82755,"date":"2026-07-14T12:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T12:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/82755\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T12:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T12:36:11","slug":"hsbc-loses-conviction-in-leading-drugmaker-forecasts-tough-path-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/82755\/","title":{"rendered":"HSBC loses conviction in leading drugmaker, forecasts &#8216;tough path&#8217; ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HSBC has lost conviction in its buy rating for AstraZeneca and forecasts a &#8220;tough path ahead&#8221; for the British-Swedish drugmaker, which last week posted a rare clinical trial failure that sent shares tumbling. The bank&#8217;s analysts have downgraded the stock from buy to hold, as the team &#8220;no longer finds the risk-reward balance attractive,&#8221; according to a Monday research note. HSBC slashed its target price for AstraZeneca to \u00a3137.50 ($183.95) from \u00a3165, marking a downward revision of over 16%. Shares of AstraZeneca fell as much as 9% on Friday after a late-stage clinical trial for a heart disease drug failed to meet its target. Analysts suggested investors&#8217; trust in the company may be waning. HSBC analysts agree, writing that the key to AstraZeneca&#8217;s historic valuation multiples has been &#8220;the market&#8217;s confidence in the company&#8217;s research and development engine.&#8221; They added that if the bear case scenarios for its trials play out, three sequential losses &#8220;might reduce confidence&#8221; in the company&#8217;s R &amp; D engine and set the stage for a rerating. For years, AstraZeneca has commanded some of the richest valuations among large European pharmaceutical companies on the assumption that management consistently delivers successful late-stage clinical trials across oncology, rare diseases, and specialty medicines, and replenishes its portfolio with new blockbuster medicines. Under CEO Pascal Soriot&#8217;s 14-year reign, AstraZeneca has developed a reputation as a pharma powerhouse that rarely posts negative trial results. Its shares are down 12% since the results were released. \u2014 CNBC&#8217;s Elsa Ohlen also contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HSBC has lost conviction in its buy rating for AstraZeneca and forecasts a &#8220;tough path ahead&#8221; for the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20667],"tags":[21151,13617,1498,27943,9881,160,2029],"class_list":["post-82755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hsbc","tag-astrazeneca-plc","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-business-news","tag-gilead-sciences-inc","tag-hsbc","tag-markets","tag-pharmaceuticals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116918366051792358","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}