Leerink Partners Assumes WAVE Life Sciences (WVE) at Outperform

Leerink Partners assumes coverage on WAVE Life Sciences (NASDAQ: WVE) with a Outperform rating and a price target of $45.00.

Analyst Paul Matteis commented, "In the context of recent safety setbacks for leading players in the oligonucleotide based therapeutic (OBT) space, we believe WVE's proprietary "stereopure" approach to drug development could enable the generation of less immunogenic and more potent nucleic acid medicines. Currently at a ~$960MM market cap, WVE looks expensive for a preclinical/phase I company but is priced at a steep discount (~20% to ~25%) to peers ALNY (MP) and IONS (MP); meanwhile, WVE anticipates rapid progress with 2 imminent IND filings, at least 3 clinical candidates in 2017, and 6 total filed INDs by the end of next year. We believe the theoretical promise of WVE's approach has been validated by $30MM equity investments from TEVA (OP) and PFE (MP), the latter of whom made an additional $10MM payment to partner up to 5 programs targeting metabolic disease."

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on WAVE Life Sciences click here. For more ratings news on WAVE Life Sciences click here.

Shares of WAVE Life Sciences closed at $36.45 yesterday.

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