Aegis Capital reaffirms its Buy rating and $16 target price on Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: IRWD) following the company's Q1 report. Ahead of the bell, Ironwood posted Q1 loss of $.38 per share with revenue of $14.6 million, versus consensus estimates looking for a loss of $.44 per share with revenue of $8.52 million.

Analyst Ram Selvaraju commented, On its earnings conference call, Ironwood indicated that nearly 240,000 prescriptions for LINZESS were filled in 1Q 2014, an increase of 11% quarter-over-quarter. Over 800,000 scripts have been filled by over 260,000 adult patients since the launch of the drug in December 2012, according to IMS Health. In 1Q 2014 alone, the total number of unique practitioners prescribing LINZESS® reached 63,000. Roughly 92% of high-prescribing gastroenterologists - the specialty physician population most relevant to the drug - and 76% of other high-prescribing physicians have written scripts for LINZESS since launch ... We remain convinced that LINZESS sales growth has room to run. However, we acknowledge that the acceleration in scripts could be faster at this stage in the drug's rollout. Nevertheless, we would recommend that investors note the differentiated profile of the drug, the high degree of efficacy in both chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) and irritable bowel syndrome of the constipation-predominant subtype (IBS-C), and the future value drivers, including sales outside the U.S. (particularly in emerging markets) and potential for use in areas such as opioid-induced constipation (OIC).

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Shares of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals closed at $10.17 yesterday.