OpGen Shares Initiated At Buy, $2.50 Target By Rodman & Renshaw

Rodman & Renshaw has initiated coverage on OpGen Inc OPGN with a Buy rating. The brokerage kept a price target of $2.50 on shares citing rapid pathogen pinpointing, and appropriate antibiotic designation.

Analysts said in a note, "In our view, the company's QuickFISH assays, the latest generation of its fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) platform, are differentiated from competitors in that they utilize the unique peptide nucleic acid (PNA) technology for whole cell visualization and analysis without cell lysis or target sequence amplification, which allows for a total turnaround time of under 30 minutes."

The brokerage believes QuickFISH is entering the rapid growth phase to drive sales. The analysts pointed that of $3.2 million revenue reported for 2015, the major portion came from QuickFISH tests. Therefore, the analysts are projecting $4.4 million for the year 2016 fueled mainly by QuickFISH tests.

Rodman & Renshaw also noted OpGen is creating a desktop automated QuickFISH system currently. The analysts see the potentially for multiplex capability and expects its rollout in 2017.

"We estimate that OpGen may achieve cash flow breakeven in 2021, with peak sales of nearly $120M achievable by 2029. Two different FISH implementation studies, one in Florida and another in London, UK, have shown that QuickFISH assays can generate significant cost savings," the analysts added.

The brokerage believes OpGen is undervalued currently due to the substantial market opportunity for its QuickFISH in the molecular in vitro diagnostics segment.

Shares of the company traded 3.8 percent down on Wednesday.