He insisted the firm remained an attractive proposition and much of the good news had been overlooked by the market which was instead focused on the failure of a trial for lung cancer treatment.
The news saw the company’s share experience its biggest ever fall on the London Stock Exchange with prices plummeting more than 16% to 4,346 at 8am Thursday.
“In my view, the trial reading does not justify a 16% fall in the value of the company and it is not evidence of the failure of the drug, nor of the strategy, nor indeed of the rationale for my investment in AstraZeneca,” Woodford said.
Better-than-expected sales and good cost control meant the half-year results for the firm were in fact ahead of expectations regardless of the trial’s failure, he added.
Woodford said: “As I have said repeatedly, the investment case for AstraZeneca is about so much more than this one trial.
“Across a broad spread of disease areas, the company is developing new ground-breaking therapies which have significant commercial potential. Much of that is more visible today than at any stage since its CEO, Pascal Soriot, set out his strategic goal to double sales by 2023.
“The market remains deeply sceptical that anything like that is remotely possible. Consequently, almost nothing of this potential is priced into the shares.”
AstraZeneca is the top holding in Woodford’s £10.3bn flagship equity income fund and the recently launched income focus fund.
The stock accounts for 8.74% and 7.55% of each respective portfolio as of 30 June 2017.
