In a report issued Monday, Chardan Capital Markets’ Managing Director and Head of Healthcare Research Gbola Amusa looked into five biotech and pharmaceutical companies with catalysts coming this week.
Regeneron: Buy, $565.00 PT
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc REGN is scheduled to announce its second-quarter financial results before the market opens on Tuesday. Chardan believes the company “should perform on the Praluent ramp in cholesterol management, en route to Praluent achieving mega-blockbuster status ($8.0 billion in 2021 sales).”
For the second quarter of 2015 and the full year, the firm expects earnings and sales figures above consensus. However, the analysts do not expect the company to trade on 2015 and “are more interested in any management feedback that affects 2016 and beyond financials, especially since 2015 will have stocking, ramp costs, and other items that would make financials atypical.”
Ophthotech: Top Pick, Buy, $105.00 PT
Small-cap Ophthotech Corp OPHT will report its second-quarter results on Wednesday morning. However, Amusa does not expect a lot of news in the call, but does see it as an opportunity for shareholders to learn more about the Fovista-Novartis story.
Novartis AG (ADR) NVS has agreed to pay millions in royalties and milestones for Fovista sales, and the analyst believes “Novartis could potentially in part finance an OPHT acquisition from likely milestone payments, by acting sooner, or otherwise may have to pay potentially $5 billion-$10 billion (or more) in 2016 or later, once phase III visibility on OPHT's Fovista emerges.”
The recent purchase of Receptos Inc RCPT by Celgene Corporation CELG supports the acquisition thesis presented above.
VistaGen: Buy, $50.00 PT
Vistagen Therapeutics Inc VSTA is seeing increased investor interest following the acquisition of Naurex by Allergan PLC AGN. The experts comment, “To the extent that Allergan management on its calls talks about Naurex and the mechanism of the new class of anti-depression medicines (NMDAR modulators), that includes VSTA's AV-101, we believe this will support performance for VSTA, which has potentially the first oral anti-depression drug with the mechanism.”
Allergan’s earnings call is scheduled for Thursday morning.
Esperion: Sell, $45.00 PT
Esperion Therapeutics Inc ESPR will report its quarterly financial results on Thursday after the market closes. While Chardan’s questions regarding the company’s cholesterol drug ETC-1002 remain unanswered, they stated that they will try their best to get some answers from the call.
Axovant Sciences: Sell, $9.50 PT
Finally, there’s Axovant Sciences Ltd AXON, a small-cap, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. The analysts said it would be good to follow vTv Therapeutics Inc VTVT’s trades from here, as they see a few parallels with Axovant.
Their view is quite simple: They believe Axovant’s shares are “mis-priced/over-valued based on consensus modeling.”
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