Date: 26 December 2025 (Boxing Day)
CSL Limited is ending 2025 in a very un-CSL-like place: a global healthcare heavyweight with a bruised share price, a high-profile strategic rethink around its vaccines arm, and investors trying to decide whether the company’s “reset” is the bottom—or just the middle of the story.
Today, there’s an important wrinkle: the ASX is closed on Boxing Day (Friday, 26 December 2025), so market moves are paused while the narrative isn’t. [1]
Below is what’s actually driving CSL stock right now, the latest company and sector headlines shaping sentiment, and where the main CSL share price forecasts are clustering as 2026 approaches.
CSL share price today: where the stock last traded before the holiday halt
Because the ASX is closed on 26 December, the most recent trading data reflects the last open session.
- CSL closed at A$171.48 on 24 December 2025, after an early-close trading day ahead of Christmas. [2]
- Over the final month shown (late November to late December), CSL slid from the mid‑A$180s to the low‑A$170s. [3]
- Investing.com’s snapshot also shows CSL’s 52‑week range at A$168.00 to A$290.32 and a one‑year change around -39% (as displayed on its CSL historical page). [4]
That price action is the market’s way of saying: investors aren’t arguing about whether CSL is a serious company. They’re arguing about how quickly it can rebuild confidence in its growth profile—especially with vaccines (Seqirus) under pressure.
A quick refresher: what CSL actually is (and why the stock matters to global healthcare investors)
CSL is not a one-trick biotech. It’s a global biopharma business built around three major pillars:
- CSL Behring (plasma-derived therapies and specialty medicines)
- CSL Seqirus (influenza and other vaccines)
- CSL Vifor (iron deficiency and nephrology)
In its FY2025 annual reporting, CSL said it provides lifesaving products in more than 100 countries and employs 29,000+ people, highlighting its scale in plasma collection and advanced biologics manufacturing. [5]
That scale is why CSL often trades like a “defensive growth” name—until the market decides the “growth” part needs re-proving.
The biggest CSL stock story heading into 2026: Seqirus, U.S. flu vaccination rates, and a delayed demerger
1) Seqirus spin-off delayed as U.S. influenza vaccination demand weakens
One of the defining CSL headlines of late 2025: the company delayed the planned spin-off (demerger) of CSL Seqirus, its vaccines business, citing volatility and a sharp shift in the U.S. market.
Reuters reported CSL pushed back the Seqirus demerger timing amid “heightened volatility” in the U.S. influenza vaccine market, alongside a broader downgrade to near-term growth expectations. [6]
Trade media coverage echoed the same core driver: a steeper-than-expected drop in U.S. flu vaccination rates, which directly hits Seqirus volumes and mix. [7]
2) CSL’s revised FY2026 growth outlook
The guidance revision is central to why the stock has struggled to stabilize.
Reuters reported CSL revised its FY2026 revenue growth outlook to 2%–3% (from 4%–5%) and lowered expected NPATA growth to 4%–7% (from 7%–10%) after the influenza market deterioration. [8]
Australian market coverage put the downgrade in context: MarketIndex described the reset as a major confidence hit, noting the company also flagged high single‑digit growth expectations beyond FY2026 given uncertainty in U.S. vaccination dynamics. [9]
Why this matters for CSL investors: CSL has historically earned a premium valuation partly because it delivered consistency. Two sizeable guidance resets in a short span are the kind of thing that compresses valuation multiples—even before the numbers show up in reported earnings.
Restructuring and cost-out: CSL’s “simplify and refocus” plan is still a core catalyst
CSL’s reset isn’t only about vaccines. It’s also about reshaping the cost base and operating model.
In August 2025, Reuters reported CSL announced a major shake-up including up to 3,000 job cuts, R&D consolidation, and plasma collection center closures, alongside a planned Seqirus spin-out (at the time targeted for early 2026). Reuters also reported CSL paired that move with a A$750 million share buyback and said the restructuring aims for substantial annual savings, with a significant one-time pre-tax charge flagged. [10]
The throughline: CSL is trying to protect what it does best (plasma-derived therapies and specialty medicines) while making Seqirus less of a drag—or, eventually, a separate story.
“Current” CSL company updates investors are watching in late 2025
Even while the share price is under pressure, CSL has continued to publish meaningful operating and R&D updates that matter for long-term fundamentals.
Five-year HEMGENIX (HOPE-B) data: durability narrative gets stronger
In early December 2025, CSL announced five-year (60‑month) results from the pivotal Phase 3 HOPE‑B study for HEMGENIX (etranacogene dezaparvovec‑drlb), emphasizing long-term durability and safety; the company noted the data were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented around the ASH meeting timeframe. [11]
Long-duration data matter a lot in gene therapy—because the whole point is that “one-and-done” stays done. The market typically rewards durability evidence with higher confidence in lifetime value, reimbursement stability, and reduced commercial skepticism.
ANDEMBRY approvals expand CSL’s newer product platform
Earlier in 2025, CSL announced that Health Canada authorized ANDEMBRY (garadacimab) for hereditary angioedema (HAE), positioning it as an important step for CSL’s in-house recombinant monoclonal antibody pipeline. [12]
This matters for the “CSL beyond plasma” narrative: investors want proof CSL can repeatedly produce high-value products outside its legacy plasma engine.
VarmX partnership: pipeline plus optionality
CSL also entered a strategic collaboration with Dutch biotech VarmX to develop an investigational coagulation treatment (VMX‑C001), including an exclusive option structure described in CSL’s announcement. [13]
Deals like this do two jobs at once:
- expand the pipeline with late-stage potential, and
- signal CSL is willing to buy innovation rather than only build it.
CSL stock forecast: what analysts are projecting heading into 2026
Here’s where the market gets weirdly split-brained: the stock has fallen hard, but many analyst targets still imply large upside—a classic setup when sentiment collapses faster than models.
Analyst consensus targets: large upside implied, but dispersion remains
Investing.com’s analyst snapshot shows:
- 16 analyst opinions tracked
- Average price target ~A$234.12
- High ~A$288.44 / Low ~A$186.18
- The page also displays implied upside of roughly +36% from the A$171.48 area. [14]
Fintel’s aggregation similarly indicates an average one-year target in the mid‑A$200s (with a wide high/low range). [15]
How to read this (without drinking the hopium):
Wide ranges usually mean analysts agree CSL is high quality, but disagree on timing—specifically how quickly Seqirus stabilizes and how soon the transformation program translates into cleaner, more dependable earnings growth.
Growth forecasts: mid-single digit revenue, higher earnings growth assumptions
Simply Wall St’s “future growth” view (based on analyst expectations it tracks) suggests CSL is forecast to grow:
- Earnings ~10% per year
- Revenue ~4% per year
- ROE ~17% in three years (as displayed on the page) [16]
These are not guarantees—just model-based expectations—but they align with the idea that CSL’s core franchises can still compound even if vaccines stay choppy.
Why CSL’s vaccines problem matters so much to valuation (even though plasma is the engine)
A useful mental model for CSL stock right now:
- Behring (plasma therapies) is the dependable engine investors historically paid up for.
- Seqirus (vaccines) has become the volatility amplifier—especially tied to U.S. vaccination behavior and policy noise. [17]
- Vifor and newer assets are the “optional upside” components that can help diversify growth if execution is strong. [18]
So even if Behring is performing, the market can still compress CSL’s multiple when one segment introduces uncertainty into group-level guidance.
What to watch next: CSL stock catalysts and risk factors for early 2026
1) The next major scheduled event: CSL half-year results
CSL’s investor calendar lists its Half Year results and interim dividend announcement on 11 February 2026 (AEDT). [19]
For investors, that’s the next hard checkpoint where CSL can either:
- demonstrate Seqirus is behaving closer to updated assumptions, and/or
- show early wins in efficiency, margin control, or execution consistency.
2) Seqirus: demand visibility and policy noise
The U.S. influenza vaccine market is currently the swing factor in CSL’s near-term narrative. Reuters and industry coverage point to declining vaccination rates and volatility as key reasons CSL delayed the Seqirus demerger and adjusted outlook. [20]
Any evidence that vaccination demand is stabilizing—or that Seqirus can protect share and margins even in a weaker market—would likely matter disproportionately to sentiment.
3) Execution of the simplification program
The restructuring plan is designed to simplify operations and improve productivity, but execution risk is real—especially in a company as complex and global as CSL. Reuters framed the August plan as a major overhaul with material savings targets and material one-off costs. [21]
4) Product momentum: durability data and new approvals
Investors will likely keep scoring CSL on whether it can consistently stack credible wins:
- long-term evidence for HEMGENIX [22]
- commercial ramp and broader adoption for newer products (including ANDEMBRY in multiple markets) [23]
- pipeline advancement via partnerships like VarmX [24]
Bottom line for CSL Limited stock on 26 December 2025
CSL stock is finishing 2025 with two competing truths:
- The company is still one of the world’s most important large-scale biopharma platforms, with global reach, deep plasma infrastructure, and a pipeline that continues to generate meaningful clinical and regulatory milestones. [25]
- The market is punishing uncertainty—especially around Seqirus and the reliability of near-term growth guidance—until CSL proves the reset is working. [26]
With the ASX closed for Boxing Day, nothing trades today—but the debate is very much open: whether CSL’s current level is a rare discount on a high-quality platform, or a reflection of how long it may take to restore the “predictability premium” the stock once enjoyed.
References
1. www.asx.com.au, 2. www.investing.com, 3. www.investing.com, 4. www.investing.com, 5. investors.csl.com, 6. www.reuters.com, 7. www.fiercepharma.com, 8. www.reuters.com, 9. www.marketindex.com.au, 10. www.reuters.com, 11. newsroom.csl.com, 12. newsroom.csl.com, 13. newsroom.csl.com, 14. www.investing.com, 15. fintel.io, 16. simplywall.st, 17. www.reuters.com, 18. investors.csl.com, 19. investors.csl.com, 20. www.reuters.com, 21. www.reuters.com, 22. newsroom.csl.com, 23. newsroom.csl.com, 24. newsroom.csl.com, 25. investors.csl.com, 26. www.reuters.com
