A Year Later, It's Still 'Hurry Up And Wait' For Roche

I try not to spend too much of my writing time on well-known, well-covered names like Roche (OTCQX:RHHBY), but I do own the shares and it has been a year to the day since I've last written on this giant Swiss pharmaceutical company.

I thought the company was more or less in a holding pattern a year ago, and the shares have gone almost nowhere (on a net basis) since then, as positives like the launch and early acceptance of Ocrevus and the promising clinical data on emicizumab/ACE910 in hemophilia has been offset by progress with competitive biosimilars, mixed results from next-gen oncology compounds, and worries about lead immuno-oncology drug Tecentriq.

It's tempting to say, “Roche is Roche… and it'll all just work out in the end.” This is a well-regarded pharmaceutical company with a deep internal R&D effort that has not gone to the same excesses as some of its peers in attempting to cost-cut its way to prosperity. At the same time, we're all still learning as we go when it comes to immuno-oncology, and it is tough to say how Roche will stand against the likes of Merck (MRK), Bristol-Myers (BMY), and many others in the years to come.

I do still believe Roche is undervalued, but major upcoming updates (like Tecentriq in first-line non-small cell lung cancer) in the second half of 2017 and on into 2018 are key to the modeling assumptions that drive the fair value.

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A Year Later, It's Still 'Hurry Up And Wait' For Roche