The CSL Limited (ASX: CSL) share price is down 0.15% to $268.17 on Tuesday.
The broader market is also in the red today, with the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) down 0.38% to 7,165.3 points at the time of writing.
CSL shares have been in the doldrums this year, down 4.9% year to date, while the ASX 200 is up 3.17%.
Despite this, a slew of brokers have been telling investors to buy the ASX 200 blue chip for many months.
Are they still recommending CSL shares for ASX growth investors?
Let's take a look at the latest company news and analysts' views on the CSL share price.
The latest news from CSL
CSL reported its FY23 results on 15 August, revealing a 31% increase in constant currency revenue to US$13.31 billion and a 20% rise in net profit after tax before amortisation (NPATA) to US$2.86 billion.
The healthcare giant upped its final dividend by 9.3% to US$1.29 per share, partially franked at 10%. That's the biggest dividend CSL has ever paid out. CSL shares went ex-dividend yesterday.
CSL CEO Dr Paul McKenzie reaffirmed the FY24 guidance, saying:
For FY24, revenue growth is anticipated to be approximately 9-11% over FY23 at constant currency.
CSL's underlying profit, NPATA for FY24 is anticipated to be in the range of approximately $2.9 billion to $3.0 billion at constant currency, representing growth over FY23 of approximately 13-17%.
On the day the results were released, the CSL share price rose 3.7% to close at $272.80.
One of CSL's big differentiators is its commitment and vast budget for research and development.
The biotherapeutics giant has a policy in place to spend 10% to 11% of annual revenue on R&D.
As reported in The Australian today, CSL is working on a drug designed to stop lung inflammation, which causes asthma.
It's called trabikibart or CSL311, and it has the potential to replace steroid therapies delivered via an inhaler.
The article quotes CSL chief scientific officer Andrew Nash.
He says CSL311 is designed to provide a more personalised treatment for severe asthma sufferers.
Nash said:
That's the key with asthma therapies at the moment: being able to go to the clinicians and patients and say we recognise that you've got a particular type of asthma and our drug will be targeted towards the asthma you've got.
According to the article, CSL has been talking about CSL311 since 2019.
However, the pandemic delayed the commencement of a Phase 1 clinical trial until now.
The latest views on the CSL share price
Firetrail Investments managing director Patrick Hodgens says CSL is amongst the biggest holdings in their high conviction fund and they're "very happy to be owning CSL over the medium term".
According to Hodgens:
… in fact, we bought quite a bit more on the back of that perceived weakness by the market.
We think CSL has some really good earnings upside if you look out two to three years.
Following CSL's FY23 results release, Citi retained its buy rating with a slightly lower 12-month share price target of $325 per share.
Morgans retained its add rating and lifted its share price target on CSL to $328.20.
Remarkable history of share price growth
While past returns are no guarantee of future returns, the CSL share price has risen 1,524% over the past 20 years — as shown below.
