Piper Jaffray Cuts Price Target on Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) Following Announced Discontinuation of Evacetrapib
Piper Jaffray reiterated an Overweight rating on Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY), and cut the price target to $118.00 (from $120.00), following the company's announced discontinuation of its CETP inhibitor evacetrapib. LLY's stock fell by 7.8% following the announcement.
Analyst Richard Purkiss commented, "Yesterday, LLY's stock fell by 7.8% after the company announced discontinuation of its CETP inhibitor evacetrapib on DSMB advice that its Phase 3 ACCELERATE trial had a low probability of demonstrating efficacy in patients with high CV risk. We view the stock reaction as exaggerated given evacetrapib accounted for less than 2% of our overall valuation. Our recovery thesis for LLY is driven mainly by its new diabetes drugs (Jardiance, Glyxambi, Trulicity and Abasaglar) with other contributions in oncology (Cyramza, abemaciclib), inflammation (baricitinib, ixekizumab) and Alzheimer's (solanezumab). We have lowered our price target to $118 (from $120, -1.6%) to reflect evacetrapib's failure, but reiterate our Overweight rating on LLY's stock."
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Shares of Eli Lilly closed at $79.44 yesterday.