A US$7 billion takeover rumoured to be on foot in the US could give investors a better sense of the upside in Telix Pharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX: TLX) shares, according to the team at Morgan Stanley.
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Takeover talks behind closed doors
Bloomberg News has reported that private equity-backed Curium Pharma has made an approach to Lantheus Holdings, which operates in the same drug compound field as Telix – radiopharmaceuticals for use in the treatment of prostate cancer.
Neither company is commenting on the supposed deal; however, Morgan Stanley said the rumoured deal numbers could be used to extrapolate a value for Telix.
Lantheus and Telix were both "key players" in the field of prostate cancer detection, Morgan Stanley said, with Lantheus through its Pylarify compound and Telix through Illuccix and Gozellix.
The Morgan Stanley team said the deal price implies a higher multiple than Telix is trading at currently, and if the multiple were applied to Telix, a share price of $18.40 to $18.95 would be on the cards.
Morgan Stanley has also factored in the revenue and R&D guidance for this year from Telix, "and risk-weighted contributions from late-stage candidates'', and has come up with a 12-month price target of $22.40 for Telix shares.
This compares with the current share price of $12.83.
Business travelling well
Telix Chief Executive Officer Christian Behrenbuch told the company's annual general meeting last week that the company's core commercial business was performing "extremely well", with the company continuing to take market share in the US.
He added:
In Q1 2026, our Precision Medicine revenue was up 11% quarter-on-quarter to US$186 million with 5% volume growth. We affirm our full-year 2026 Group revenue guidance of US$950 million to US$970 million based on strong uptake of Gozellix and continued growth from Illuccix. This guidance also includes revenue from RLS Radiopharmacies. We also affirm our previously stated research and development (R&D) expenditure guidance of US$200 million to US$240 million, subject to achieving ongoing global commercial milestones.
Mr Behrenbuch said the US remained the company's primary revenue driver, but added that it was also expanding internationally, with Illuccix now available in 22 countries.
He added:
In January, we announced acceptance of the New Drug Application (NDA) for Illuccix in China9, while in Japan we continue to progress a Phase 3 bridging study. We are also preparing to advance our NDA submission under Japan's conditional approval framework, with the objective of enabling earlier commercial access.
Mr Behrenbuch said Telix was continuing to advance its therapeutic pipeline, "with multiple late-stage studies gaining momentum''.
Telix is valued at $4.56 billion.
