** Credit Suisse has a less favourable view of the pharma
sector entering 2021 and names macro, politics, pricing,
disruption and positioning as key areas of concern
    ** The brokerage says pharma tends to be the worst
performing sector when the dollar weakens, and expects more
political pressure, especially from the incoming Biden
presidency in the U.S. 
    ** It notes that as earnings of companies from other sectors
got more severely hit by COVID-19, the historic sector
price-earnings ratio (PE) premium has declined for major pharma
companies    
    ** To reflect derating of the sector relative to the
European markets, CS trims target prices for Sanofi  SASY.PA ,
AstraZeneca  AZN.L , Novartis  NOVN.S , GSK  GSK.L , Grifols
 GRLS.MC  and Ipsen  IPN.PA  
    ** It raises PT on Bayer  BAYGn.DE , citing positive Ag
backdrop; on Lonza  LONN.S  and Merck  MRCG.DE  due to their
growth potential, and on biotech/specialty pharma companies UCB
 UCB.BR , Almirall  ALM.MC , Recordati  RECI.MI , Orion
 ORNBV.HE  and Lundbeck  LUN.CO      
    ** The brokerage downgrades GSK  GSK.L  to "underperform"
from "neutral", citing multiple near-term and strategic
challenges and hence limited upside versus peers
    ** It cuts Novo Nordisk  NOVOb.CO  to "neutral" from
"outperform" as following a strong performance over 2020, the
risk/reward is more balanced with 2021 unlikely to be a
transformational year



 ((marta.frackowiak@thomsonreuters.com))