Roth Affirms 'Buy' Rating on MEI Pharma (MEIP); New AML Treatment Data Bolsters Confidence

Roth Capital affirms its Buy rating and $20 price target on MEI Pharma, Inc. (Nasdaq: MEIP) after the company announced preliminary data from the first stage of their ongoing Phase II study of pracinostat in elderly patients with newly diagnosed AML who are unable to undergo chemotherapy.

Analyst Joseph Pantginis said, We are encouraged by the achievement of the pre-specified threshold of CR/CRi at this stage of enrollment and by the positive ORR achieved to date. We believe these results further strengthen MEIP's study design of combining pracinostat with Vidaza in AML and MDS in both front-line and refractory settings. Treatment with Vidaza alone in this elderly patient population with AML results in a 10% CR/CRi response rate and the current data surpasses that with a 33% rate.

MEIP is progressing towards an eventful end of 2014, in our view, with preliminary data from two phase II studies of pracinostat expected to be presented in December 2014, presumably at ASH. This will be followed in 1Q15 by data from the front-line MDS study. By December 2014, MEIP will conclude its IND-enabling preclinical studies of their PI3K-delta inhibitor, PWT143, with an IND filing in 2015 and subsequent phase I. MEIP's mitochondrial inhibitor ME-344 entered a phase Ib study in May 2014, the analyst concluded.

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on MEI Pharma click here. For more ratings news on MEI Pharma click here.

Shares of MEI Pharma closed at $6.14 yesterday.

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