BTIG analyst Julian Harrison raised the price target on Abivax (NASDAQ: ABVX) to $175.00 (from $150.00) while maintaining a Buy rating.

The analyst comments "The ABTECT Maintenance Part 2 update provided additional safety data that confirms, in our view, a sufficiently clean safety profile for obefazimod. Considering the updated results for malignancies excluding nonmelanoma skin cancers (NMSCs), we do not believe it is likely that obefazimod receives a boxed warning. Even if obefazimod were to receive an unboxed warning for nonNMSCs, which are highly manageable, we do not expect this to have a material impact on physicians' willingness to prescribe the Tx. Exposure-adjusted incidence rates (EAIRs) of non-NMSC malignancies and NMSCs per 100 patient years (100py) in the trial (Part 1 + 2) were well within the range of what the literature shows for the natural history of a UC patient (UC background EAIRs for non-NMSC malignancies and NMSCs per 100py: 0.30-0.70 and 0.70-1.40; ABTECT Maintenance EAIRs in patients treated with obefazimod: 0.56 and 1.26, respectively). Views from two leading GI KOLs, Dr. Jordan Axelrad and Dr. Remo Panaccione of NYU and University of Calgary, respectively, supported this view, noting the non-NMSC malignancy events were common cancers unlikely to be drug-related and NMSCs are very manageable. We think these results and commentary should sufficiently address investor concerns regarding obefazimod's safety profile. Obefazimod's efficacy continued to impress, with 37.2% and 34.5% of non-induction responders treated with 50mg obefazimod achieving 52wk clinical and endoscopic remission, respectively. Patients who relapsed in Part 1 of ABTECT Maintenance also saw restored disease control when their dose was escalated from 25mg to 50mg, highlighting potential real-world advantages of advancing both doses for commercial use, which ABVX mgmt. expects to do. ABVX remains on track to submit obefazimod's UC NDA in 4Q26, with Phase 2b ENHANCE-CD induction results on track for mid-2027. Following this update, we raise our probability of success for obefazimod in UC from 90% to 95% and in CD from 80% to 85%, and lower the discount rate to 14%, increasing our PT to $175 from $150."