What happened
Shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX -3.88%) took it on the chin Monday, suffering a nearly 7% decline in value. Not for the first time in recent days, the company was socked by an analyst's increasingly dim view of its prospects.
So what
Barclays prognosticator Gena Wang didn't exactly get BioCryst's week off to an encouraging start. Monday morning, she downgraded her recommendation on the stock to equalweight (read: neutral) from the previous overweight (buy). In doing so, she took a big whack to her price target; it's now $13 per share, where formerly it was $22.
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Wang is bearish on the biotech company's leading pipeline drug BCX9930, and isn't hot on its latest commercialized product, hereditary angioedema (HAE) treatment Orladeyo.
She wrote that her move was because of "uncertainty of the Factor D inhibitor BCX9930 in paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), as well as the cautious outlook of Orladeyo in hereditary angioedema (HAE).'
"For BCX9930, following the enrollment pause in multiple trials... we expect a near-term [Food and Drug Administration] partial/full clinical hold announcement with uncertainty on resolvability of the safety concern and a possibility of discontinuation," she wrote.
Now what
Wang is only the most-recent analyst to get more negative in her BioCryst outlook. Last Monday, Bank of America's Tazeen Ahmad similarly downgraded the stock to neutral from buy, largely on that BCX9930 enrollment pause.
That doesn't mean the stock lacks believers, though. Oppenheimer's Justin Kim, for example, shaved his target price on the stock last week (to $16 per share from $20), but is maintaining his outperform (buy) recommendation.
