Courtesy of Benzinga.
Arrowhead Research Corp (NASDAQ: ARWR)’s hepatitis B medicine may prove a cure for the disease, but early data are unimpressive, an analyst said Tuesday.
The company got regulatory clearance on Monday for a small, multi-dose trial of the drug, called ARC-520. The three-month trial is expected to launch in May with interim data available in June.
Jefferies’ analyst Eun K. Yang cut her rating on Arrowhead to Hold, from Buy and slashed her target 70 percent to $9.
Arrowhead changed hands recently at $7.46, down 6.75 percent.
“We’re waiting to see multi-dosing data,” Yang said, noting that results from a small, single-dose trial released last year revealed lower-than-expected improvements for patients.
Multi-dose therapy “will produce deeper results, potentially leading to a functional cure,” Yang said, although she doesn’t expect a successful product could reach the market until 2020.
Potential peak sales for the drug, if successful, may hit $4.5 billion, according to Wang.
Competing treatments are under development by privately held Replicor, Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) and Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp (NASDAQ: TKMR), with the best potential cure stemming from multiple-drug therapies, according to Yang.
Latest Ratings for ARWR
Date | Firm | Action | From | To |
---|---|---|---|---|
Apr 2015 | Jefferies | Downgrades | Buy | Hold |
Jan 2015 | Deutsche Bank | Downgrades | Buy | Hold |
Oct 2014 | RBC Capital | Downgrades | Outperform | Sector Perform |
View More Analyst Ratings for ARWR
View the Latest Analyst Ratings
Posted-In: Eun K. Yang JefferiesAnalyst Color Downgrades Price Target FDA Analyst Ratings