JPMorgan Maintains "Neutral" Rating on Amgen with $350 Price Target, ~20% Below Current Price
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J.P. Morgan maintained a Neutral rating on Amgen (AMGN) with a $350 target, roughly 20% below the stock's last close — even as the bank called Imdelltra's frontline lung-cancer data "impressive." The message: the good news is already in the price.
How strong is the clinical data, really?
In the DeLLphi-305 Phase III trial, patients with extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer — an aggressive subtype that spreads fast — received Imdelltra plus AstraZeneca's Imfinzi. Median overall survival hit 21.1 months versus 12.7 months on Imfinzi alone, a 58% reduction in the risk of death.
Progression-free survival — the time before the tumor worsens — was 7.4 months in the combination arm versus just 1.9 months, a more-than-threefold gain.
This means → This is not a marginal improvement. In small-cell lung cancer, a field where progress has been painfully slow, survival nearly doubled. Analyst Chris Schott said the magnitude "supports an important role for Imdelltra in earlier lines of therapy."
What is Amgen's next move?
Amgen plans to file the data with the FDA shortly. J.P. Morgan believes the results could be incorporated into NCCN treatment guidelines even before full approval.
In plain terms = Oncologists don't always wait for the official stamp. When data are this strong, guideline panels may recommend the drug first — and that accelerates the revenue timeline.
Where does the "$5 billion-plus peak sales" number come from?
J.P. Morgan identified a triple multiplier: a larger patient pool — roughly 23,000 first-line U.S. small-cell lung cancer patients, well above roughly 14,000 in second line; longer treatment duration — median time on therapy in the frontline maintenance setting is about 2.5× the second-line figure; and a lower usage barrier — first-infusion monitoring dropped from 22–24 hours to 6–8 hours, and maintenance monitoring fell to just 1–2 hours, with fewer adverse events.
This means → More patients, treated longer, with an easier protocol — three multipliers stacked together. That is why J.P. Morgan sees Imdelltra as a potential $5 billion-plus single product for Amgen.
If the data are this good, why only a Neutral rating?
J.P. Morgan's Neutral call on Amgen has persisted for nearly two years. The target price rose from $290 in January 2024 to $300 in October 2024 and then $350 in August 2026 — each bump lagging well behind the stock's actual gains.
This reflects concerns beyond Imdelltra: Amgen faces a patent cliff — key legacy drugs losing exclusivity to generics — plus competitive pressure and a pipeline whose overall return on investment remains under question.
Put simply = J.P. Morgan is asking: can one star product offset company-wide risk? A $350 target — 20% below the current share price — says their answer is "not yet proven."
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