BTIG: Buy Teva On Weakness, U.S. Lawmakers Have Little Appetite For Direct Government Negotiation Of Drug Prices

BTIG's Timothy Chiang maintained a Buy rating on Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE: TEVA), with a $77 price target.

Buy The Weakness

Although the stock has declined 17 percent year-to-date, it has outperformed specialty pharma sector as a whole, which is down 34 percent. Chiang believes that this weakness offers an attractive buying opportunity.

“While “fear factors” continue to weigh on the group, including fear of earnings growth cuts due to some form of government drug price controls, we believe lawmakers may have little appetite for direct government negotiation of drug prices,” Chiang pointed out

Related Link: New Study Suggests Drug Prices Have Doubled Since 2011

The analyst also believes that the completion of the acquisition of the generic segment from Allergan plc Ordinary Shares (NYSE: AGN) would drive the Teva Pharmaceutical up.

Acquisition Delayed

The company earlier announced that there would be a delay in the completion of this acquisition, from early April to June 2016. “We believe the FTC’s review is taking longer as the generic pipelines for the two companies are evaluated by the FDA for potential overlap,” Chiang mentioned.

The analyst also stated that the EU regulators had recently approved the generics deal, and that the transaction was valued at $40.5 billion. Teva will be acquiring Allergan generic segment, which generated sales worth $6,375 million in 2015.