Sarepta (SRPT) Voting Questions Rekindle Hope, but RBC Still Expects a Negative Panel
RBC Capital analyst, Simos Simeonidis, weighed in Sarepta Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SRPT) after the FDA posted 5 voting questions and explanatory discussion points ahead of Monday's eteplirsen panel.
"We view the fact that panel members will have to vote on Monday as an incremental positive for SRPT, simply because of the understandable pressure committee members will be under, in the presence of the DMD community and families," the analyst said.
Simeonidis notes this puts the committee members in a very tough spot: :The bull case interpretation for SRPT is that if FDA wanted or had decided to reject eteplirsen, they would not have put voting questions as part of the agenda, in order to avoid putting undue pressure on the panelists. Put another way, if FDA wanted to approve the drug, there would be no better way to pressure committee members, than having them conduct a vote in front of the long suffering families and their boys."
However, the questions should leave little room for interpretation, he added: "Despite that view, when we read through the actual questions and the language of the accompanying discussion (see below), we see a document with the exact same tone and tenor as the January and April briefing documents. The questions and the discussion ask the panelists to focus on the trial conduct, the evidence for dystrophin and clinical efficacy. And we expect the answer to all of these to be No."
The firm maintained a Sector Perform rating and $7.50 price target.
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Shares of Sarepta Therapeutic closed at $11.02 yesterday.