Analysts Just Made An Incredible Upgrade To Their Vaccitech plc (NASDAQ:VACC) Forecasts

Shareholders in Vaccitech plc (NASDAQ:VACC) may be thrilled to learn that the analysts have just delivered a major upgrade to their near-term forecasts. The consensus statutory numbers for both revenue and earnings per share (EPS) increased, with their view clearly much more bullish on the company's business prospects.

After this upgrade, Vaccitech's four analysts are now forecasting revenues of US$46m in 2022. This would be a major 42% improvement in sales compared to the last 12 months. Per-share losses are expected to explode, reaching US$0.082 per share. However, before this estimates update, the consensus had been expecting revenues of US$26m and US$0.90 per share in losses. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, with the analysts making a sizeable increase to their revenue forecasts while also reducing the estimated loss as the business grows towards breakeven.

See our latest analysis for Vaccitech

Despite these upgrades, the analysts have not made any major changes to their price target of US$19.50, implying that their latest estimates don't have a long term impact on what they think the stock is worth. The consensus price target is just an average of individual analyst targets, so - it could be handy to see how wide the range of underlying estimates is. The most optimistic Vaccitech analyst has a price target of US$23.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$16.00. There are definitely some different views on the stock, but the range of estimates is not wide enough as to imply that the situation is unforecastable, in our view.

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Vaccitech's past performance and to peers in the same industry. We would highlight that Vaccitech's revenue growth is expected to slow, with the forecast 103% annualised growth rate until the end of 2022 being well below the historical 733% growth over the last year. By way of comparison, the other companies in this industry with analyst coverage are forecast to grow their revenue at 15% annually. Even after the forecast slowdown in growth, it seems obvious that Vaccitech is also expected to grow faster than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The highlight for us was that the consensus reduced its estimated losses this year, perhaps suggesting Vaccitech is moving incrementally towards profitability. Fortunately, analysts also upgraded their revenue estimates, and our data indicates sales are expected to perform better than the wider market. Some investors might be disappointed to see that the price target is unchanged, but we feel that improving fundamentals are usually a positive - assuming these forecasts are met! So Vaccitech could be a good candidate for more research.

Analysts are definitely bullish on Vaccitech, but no company is perfect. Indeed, you should know that there are several potential concerns to be aware of, including dilutive stock issuance over the past year. For more information, you can click through to our platform to learn more about this and the 2 other risks we've identified .

Of course, seeing company management invest large sums of money in a stock can be just as useful as knowing whether analysts are upgrading their estimates. So you may also wish to search this free list of stocks that insiders are buying.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.