Wells Fargo analyst David Maris noted that Novartis (NVS) lowered its 2018 guidance for Sandoz along with its Q2 report and reportedly told Bloomberg that it would consider selling the generic drug unit. He sees a negative read through for companies with large U.S. commodity generic exposure, such as Teva (TEVA) and Mylan (MYL), from Novartis' report, Maris tells investors. He also noted that Novartis said it will not increase prices on its drugs in the U.S. for the rest of 2018, as Pfizer (PFE) recently has also said, calling this "a wise approach and correct read of the increasing intensity of the scrutiny around rising healthcare costs." Maris continues to expect the " chilling effect" on price increases to spread through the industry. Lastly, the analyst pointed out that the Amgen-partnered (AMGN) launch of Aimovig is off to a strong start, which he believes bodes well for Teva's fremanezumab and Eli Lilly's (LLY) galcanezumab.

Bullish option flow detected in Pfizer with 50,393 calls trading, 2x expected, and implied vol increasing over 2 points to 28.83%. Sep-24 27.5 calls and Mar-25 42.5 calls are the most active options, with total volume in those strikes near 27,600 contracts. The Put/Call Ratio is 0.21. Earnings are expected on May 1st.

TD Cowen analyst Yaron Werber raised the firm's price target on BeiGene (BGNE) to $236 from $235 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The firm updated its model to reflect lower collaborative revenue given termination of Novartis (NVS) agreement for tisle in Sep 2023.