Regeneron (REGN) PT Raised to $659 at Brean Capital
Brean Capital analyst Jonathan Aschoff reiterated a Buy rating and boosted his price target on Regeneron Pharma (NASDAQ: REGN) to $659.00 (from $525.00) following solid Q1 results, led by US Eylea sales of $655 million, which overwhelmingly beat consensus of $571 million.
Regeneron commented, ". Sales growth comprised a 21% QoQ increase in underlying physician demand, with distributor inventory levels remaining within the normal 1-2 week range. Importantly, Regeneron substantially raised its guidance for 2015 US Eylea net product sales to 45-50% growth over 2014 from its prior guidance of 30-35%. Ex-US, Eylea sales increased 16% over last quarter to $338 million in 2Q15, beating consensus of $329 million, despite strong FX headwinds. Regeneron reported total revenue of $999 million and GAAP EPS of $1.69 in 2Q15, versus consensus of $888 million and $1.17, respectively. More importantly, non-GAAP EPS of $2.89 also beat consensus of $2.78. Regeneron lowered and tightened its guidance for full-year 2015 non-GAAP unreimbursed R&D expenses to $510-550 million from its prior $525-575 million range, and non-GAAP SG&A expense to $610-650 million from $650-725 million. Regeneron also increased its guidance for cash tax as a percentage of non-GAAP pre-tax income from 10-20% to 15-22%, primarily due to the new collaboration with Sanofi in immuno-oncology. Cash and marketable securities at the end of 2Q15 were about $1.2 billion, not including the $640 million imminent upfront fee payment from Sanofi for the recent execution of the immune-oncology collaboration. We are raising our target price to $659 from $525, given continued strong Eylea sales and our belief that Regeneron do everything it can to change the treatment paradigm for statin refractory/intolerant hypercholesterolemia patients."
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Shares of Regeneron Pharma closed at $554.27 yesterday.