Ajinomoto: Forge‘s customer quality upgrade and the path the US Healthcare profitability

Research evidence excerpt

Ajinomoto: Forge‘s customer quality upgrade and the path the US Healthcare profitability

25 June 2026

Price Target Upgrade

Euan McLeish

+81 3 5962 9611

APAC Food & Beverages euan.mcleish@bernsteinsg.com

Ajinomoto Co Inc Hao Wang, CFA

+852 2123 2627

Rating hao.wang@bernsteinsg.com

Outperform Mufei Gao

Price Target +81 3 6777 6995

mufei.gao@bernsteinsg.com

2802.JP 7,100.00 JPY (6,700.00 OLD)

Ajinomoto: Forge’s customer quality upgrade and the path the US

Healthcare profitability

We have seen a marked increase in the quality of Forge’s pipeline over recent months, and

Close Date 24 Jun 2026

we now expect the company to reach break even by half year FY3/27. We have raised our US

2802.JP Close Price (JPY) 5,480.00

Healthcare BP estimates by 9x in FY3/27 and 3x in FY3/28-29, and our overall Ajinomoto

Price Target (JPY) 7,100.00

EPS estimates by +0.8%/1.2%/1.7% to reflect this.

Upside/(Downside) 30%

Over the last 12mth, 4 Forge customers have started phase 1-2 clinical trials and one has 52-Week Range 6,166.00/3,270.00

moved to phase 3. This compares to only 2 companies entering clinical trials during FY3/25, JPL 2,627.28

and we expect this step up in customer quality to result in accelerated therapy production FYE Mar

volume growth, and hence Forge revenue growth and margin expansion. Div Yield 0.9%

Market Cap (JPY) (B) 5,357.99

GentiBio’s started phase 1-2 in Sep 2025, and Solid Biosciences move into phase 3 in EV (JPY) (B) 5,807.43

Oct are likely to have been reflected in the Q3-4 results, and we expect these to ramp in Performance YTD 1M 6M 12M

FY3/27. In addition, we expect production for Life Biosciences phase 1 trials to start in Q1 Absolute (%) 65.2 3.4 64.2 47.3

FY3/27, and Skylark Bio’s phase 1-2 from Q2 to drive FY3/27 growth.