Brean Capital analyst Jonathan Aschoff maintained a Buy rating on Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NKTR) today and set a price target of $16. The company’s shares closed yesterday at $10.78.
Aschoff wrote, “Nektar hosted an R&D Day event yesterday focusing on chronic pain and immuno-oncology, which included Movantik and its broadening pipeline of NKTR-181, NKTR-102, NKTR-214, and NKTR-255. Nektar disclosed that 75% of patients enrolled thus far in the Phase 3 NKTR-181 trial, SUMMIT-07, were on the higher 300mg or 400mg dose before being randomized into the controlled portion of the trial. This is a positive sign because the company also claimed that the subset of Phase 2 patients (only 25% of the patients in Phase 2) on those higher doses performed well enough against placebo to have made that trial successful if they had represented a significantly higher fraction of the total. Nektar also disclosed that enrollment has been proceeding more rapidly than expected. Therefore the interim analysis can now occur in mid-2016 rather than YE16, and with results now potentially in 2H16 rather than early 2017, as long as the trial does not need upsizing. The interim is solely for potential upsizing and not for potential early termination for success/futility. Following Nektar’s historical success with modifying immune modulators (Pegasys, Pegintron, Neulasta), the company is aggressively developing immuno-oncology candidates.”
Currently, the analyst consensus on Nektar Therapeutics is Strong Buy and the average price target is $19, representing a 76.3% upside. In a report issued on September 27, Roth Capital also reiterated a Buy rating on the stock with a $19 price target.
The company has a one year high of $17.53 and a one year low of $9.16. Currently, Nektar Therapeutics has an average volume of 1.45M.
Financial bloggers on sites such as wsobserver.com, zacks.com and others, seem to have a Positive view on NKTR. When evaluating the opinions of financial bloggers over the last 3 months, 69% of bloggers have indicated a Bullish sentiment, while 31% have indicated a Bearish sentiment. The average blogger Bullish sentiment in the sector is 80% which is slightly more positive than the blogger sentiment of NKTR.
Unlike Brean Capital`s latest rating, based on the recent corporate insider activity of 25 insiders, corporate insider sentiment is negative on the stock. Earlier this month, Howard Robin, a the President & CEO of NKTR sold 125,000 shares for a total of $1,373,750.
Aschoff is ranked 0 out of 5 stars with an average return of -3.4% and a 37.5% success rate. Aschoff covers the Healthcare sector, focusing on stocks such as IntelliPharmaCeutics Intl, Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, and Alexion Pharmaceuticals.
Nektar Therapeutics Inc is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. The Company develops a pipeline of drug candidates that utilizes its PEGylation and polymer conjugate technology platforms that are designed to developmolecular entities.