H.C. Wainwright Downgrades Assertio Therapeutics (ASRT) to Neutral
H.C. Wainwright analyst Raghuram Selvaraju downgraded Assertio Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ASRT) from Buy to Neutral with a price target of $18.00.
The analyst comments "Assertio agrees to be bought by Garda Therapeutics—downgrading to Neutral. Yesterday afternoon, following the market close, Assertio Holdings announced a definitive agreement to be acquired by privately-held Garda Therapeutics for $18 per share in cash, or total cash consideration of $125.1M, plus a contingent value right (CVR). Garda is an emerging specialty pharmaceuticals company that focuses on acquiring and optimizing existing brands. Its portfolio includes products such as Lotronex (alosetron) for diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D); Entocort EC (budesonide) for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis; and Proleukin (aldesleukin), a recombinant interleukin-2 (IL-2) product for treatment of metastatic renal cancer and melanoma. Given the principal products in Garda's portfolio, we see a clear rationale for its interest in adding Rolvedon (eflapegrastim-xnst), a long-acting G-CSF product for use in oncology supportive care, to its marketed product lineup. Assertio also closed an agreement to sell all non-Rolvedon assets to the privately-held specialty pharmaceuticals company Cosette Pharmaceuticals. The Garda transaction represents a 34.6% premium to Assertio’s unaffected stock price on March 20, 2026—the day before a significant share price and trading volume movement—and a 46.6% premium to the 30-day unaffected volume-weighted average price (VWAP) as well as a 62.2% premium to the 60-day unaffected VWAP as of March 20, 2026. The Garda transaction has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies. We are therefore downgrading our rating on Assertio to Neutral from the prior Buy and lowering our price target to $18 from $35. We note that the CVR in this deal is non-tradeable and related to potential future milestones for Sprix (ketorolac nasal spray), one of Assertio's legacy products."
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Shares of Assertio Therapeutics closed at $18.41 yesterday.