UPDATE: Bank of America Merrill Lynch Initiates Coverage on AbbVie with Buy Rating, $40 PT

In a report published Friday, Bank of America Merrill Lynch initiated coverage on AbbVie

with a Buy rating and $40.00 price target. BofA Merrill Lynch noted, “ABBV is unique among the US Major Pharma companies given its significant product concentration (45% of 2011 revenues were generated by a single product), Humira. Despite this, we are bullish on ABBV given its attractive valuation, above-average dividend yield, and the potential for the pipeline to deliver a blockbuster HCV franchise over the medium term. We conservatively include no real contribution from the rest of the pipeline despite the fact that we continue to model robust R&D spend.”” AbbVie closed on Thursday at $34.83.