Bernstein SocGen Group Upgrades Ionis Pharmaceuticals (IONS) to Market Perform

Bernstein SocGen Group analyst William Pickering upgraded Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IONS) from Underperform to Market Perform, PT $44.00.

The analyst comments "We are upgrading Ionis to Market-Perform and increasing our price target to $44. The primary reason for upgrading now is that we would not want to be Underperform into the Alnylam HELIOS-B readout, where we see favorable risk-reward on the readthrough to IONS. We have also increased our out-year revenue and EPS estimates by ~10% and ~20%, respectively, due to higher expected market share vs. ARWR in SHTG and Lp(a). HELIOS-B readthrough to Wainua: Simply put, it’s hard for IONS to get hurt here, and in most scenarios the readthrough is positive. The only truly negative scenarios for IONS are if the trial is (1) a complete failure or (2) so successful that IONS has no opportunity to put forth better data in its own larger, more conservatively powered trial. We view both of these scenarios as unlikely. We expect silencers to look differentiated vs. stabilizers, and we are more optimistic than consensus on POS (75% POS on monotherapy primary endpoint, 55% POS on mortality in all-comers). Best case scenario for IONS is that Amvuttra looks better than stabilizers but fails to achieve stat-sig on certain secondary endpoints, as IONS could plausibly improve on this. Even in a strong bull case scenario for ALNY, we still wouldn’t expect stat-sig in background taf subgroup, so there would still likely be an opening for IONS."

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Ionis Pharmaceuticals click here. For more ratings news on Ionis Pharmaceuticals click here.

Shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals closed at $41.12 yesterday.

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