Astrazeneca Share Price (AZN)

Ripley94, if it is of any consolation, my late father recalls writing a research note on the prospects for Glaxo and Beecham only to conclude that neither had advantage over the other and recommended selling both to look for growth elsewhere. He oublished in on a Friday. Over the weekend that followed merger was announced. Pa returned to oil analysis, a sector he knew from 1969 until he retired in 2000

Close 14,006. + 56.00 (0.40%) ..Bid: 14,052.00..Ask: 14,058.00...Spread: 6.00 (0.043%)

Market Cap: £217.21b

https://www.google.com/finance/beta/quote/AZN:LON?window=6M

Sorry to hear your news Paultokyo29

Dropped back since my last look .

Deutsche sell Reiteration 4 times now since mid January.

Went to all time highs in February .

AstraZeneca’s Enhertu is currently an undisputed juggernaut in the Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) space, further entrenched by the FDA's recent 2026 approvals moving it into the early, curative-intent breast cancer setting.

However, Avacta represents a profound, medium-to-long-term structural threat to the entire ADC class—and by extension, AZ’s future oncology pipeline. With the FDA’s historic lifting of the lifetime cumulative dosing limit on AVA6000 (doxorubicin) validating the cardiac safety of the pre|CISION® platform, and AVA6103 entering the clinic, Avacta has proven that Peptide-Drug Conjugates (PDCs) can solve the exact toxicity and delivery bottlenecks that currently plague ADCs like Enhertu.

AstraZeneca’s Commercial Moat: The Enhertu Juggernaut

To understand the threat level, we must first quantify AstraZeneca’s current market insulation. The May 2026 RNS highlights a formidable clinical and commercial fortress:

• Standard of Care Entrenchment: Enhertu has secured approvals across six breast cancer indications in seven years, moving from late-stage salvage therapy to early-stage curative intent (DESTINY-Breast11 and DESTINY-Breast05).

• Scale and Infrastructure: Approved in over 95 countries, AZ and Daiichi Sankyo possess unmatched global manufacturing, distribution, and commercialization infrastructure.

• Clinical Momentum: The sheer volume of data AZ has generated makes Enhertu the default Category 1 recommendation in NCCN guidelines. Dislodging a Category 1 standard of care requires years of Phase III head-to-head superiority data.

The Vulnerability: Enhertu’s Achilles' heel remains its toxicity profile. In the DESTINY-Breast05 trial, adjudicated drug-related interstitial lung disease (ILD)/pneumonitis occurred in 9.6% of patients, resulting in two fatalities. Furthermore, Enhertu relies on the presence of the HER2 antigen, limiting its total addressable market to specific patient subgroups.

Avacta’s Disruptive Edge: The PDC Paradigm

Avacta’s pre|CISION® technology fundamentally alters how toxic payloads are delivered to the tumor microenvironment (TME). Instead of relying on a bulky antibody targeting a specific cell-surface antigen (like HER2), AVA6103 uses a peptide cleaved exclusively by Fibroblast Activation Protein (FAP), which is highly concentrated in the stroma of most solid tumors.

This creates three critical advantages over current ADCs:

• Unprecedented Safety (The AVA6000 Precedent): The FDA’s decision to lift the lifetime dosing cap on AVA6000 is a watershed moment for oncology. Doxorubicin is notoriously cardiotoxic. By proving they can dose it heavily without cardiac damage, Avacta has clinically validated that the pre|CISION® platform shields healthy tissue from highly toxic payloads.

Hello A Smith. Just seen your reply to my 'moan'. I really appreciate your detailed description of your investment strategies. I did invest in AZN for the same reasons as you. My investment horizon differs though. Sadly, I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer one year ago, which makes long-term investing more difficult. I also set up private pensions for my 2 kids 10 years ago , but i stopped contributing to them due to low income etc.. but i'm glad ive given them a platform. I also expected to live another 25 years (Im57) as I was not obese, didnt smoke and ate a reasonably healthy diet. But all that changed last year. Anyway, I will stick with AZN as i expect it to do well over the next 2 years and give me a satisfactory return. I used to have a large portfolio but these days I just concentrate on less than 10 that I believe in. I wish you good luck with your retirement and try to enjoy every day. Paul. btw I'm taking Osimertinib daily for my condition which is made by AZN. they are keeping me alive (: hopefully for more years than the prognosis.

Paultokyo29, this might seem patronising, but a month is not very much in terms of investor horizon. With retirement beckoning for me in the autumn, I have increased my exposure to risk because I fully expect to live for another 25 years and my wife for another 30. AZN is one of the UK's most valuable companies (£234bn market cap). Global oncology, cardiovascular and respiratory pipeline. $50bn US investment commitment securing tariff reprieve. Consistent earnings growth. All-cycle compounder. It is not a get rich quick holding, it is dull and investors mostly like dull. (Well, this investor does is my logic).

Anyway, having started my children (now adults) off with both ISA and SIPP accounts that I have managed (and still do) the prospects ahead that AI provides are huge. And so, in my stumbling way, so I have begun to use GPT and Claude to build the documents and spreadsheets necessary for a portfolio which is constructed to out perform the market (S&P 500 is the base at 11.8%) with the minimal of research, or effort to manage.

I've come up with a "Financial Universe" that is clearly defined with 50 holdings. No single holding should exceed 8%, no bargain executed under £1,000, a minimum 1% to be held in each as a base regardeless of either conviction or sentiment. There are some direct holdings in US companies such as Nvidia, Amazon, John Deere for instance and included in UK equities is AZN for the reasons above. After that there is exposure to Asia through Investment Trusts as well as themes such as Insurance, defence, industrials, pharmaceticals and geographies to have growth from emerging markets.

All sectors are designed to allow for rotation subject to the caveats above. A simple checklist to go through their portfolio once each month taking about an hour is sufficient to manage and identify 3 - 5 companies to make adjustment. A quarterly review to take about 3 hours is again enough.

The only thing that I have not yet built is the "agent" to trawl through the LSE with the sole purpose to find the 3 missing slots, the "hidden gems". I intend to do that in Python and pull the information from Google Finance or another free API.

Oh, and I added 10 shares for elder son to start the ball rolling for him today in his SIPP.