UPDATE: Piper Jaffray Upgrades Amgen Following Onyx Acquisition

In a report published Monday, Piper Jaffray analyst M. Ian Somaiya upgraded the rating on Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) from Neutral to Overweight, and raised the price target from $120.00 to $140.00.

In the report, Piper Jaffray noted, “We are upgrading AMGN to Overweight from Neutral and increasing our PT to $140 from $120 following the ~$10.4bn (~$9.7bn net of cash) acquisition of Onyx. We continue to see this deal as strategically sound, providing Amgen with needed revenue and earnings growth. We believe Kyprolis, Onyx's most exciting asset, has the potential to generate $3bn+ in sales by 2025, with Onyx's pipeline providing further upside. We believe this transaction will be accretive to Amgen's earnings starting in 2015, adding ~$1.31 (~14%) to our 2017 estimate. We believe Amgen's internal pipeline represents an additional area of potential upside to our estimates. Amgen remains on track to deliver at least eight pivotal data readouts by 2016 and we look for data from the four trials of AMG 145 (hypercholesterolemia) in 1Q14 as the next key internal pipeline catalyst.”

Amgen closed on Friday at $105.60.