UPDATE: Piper Jaffray Initiates Coverage on Avanir Pharmaceuticals with Overweight Rating, $6 PT

In a report published Friday, Piper Jaffray & Co. initiated coverage on Avanir Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AVNR) with an Overweight rating and $6.00 price target.

Piper Jaffray noted, “We are initiating on Avanir with an Overweight rating and $6 price target. Avanir develops drugs for neurological diseases with one product, Nuedexta, approved for pseudobulbar affect (PBA), marketed by possibly one of the largest institutionalized-patient-focused sales forces in the U.S. Its Nuedexta-derived pipeline should lower capital and clinical-failure risk, in our view. Nuedexta prescriptions are growing well, but poised to accelerate over 1-4 quarters with an increasingly effective institutional force and recently re-targeted retail effort. We believe the market under-appreciates Nuedexta's broad applicability that supports use in settings like MS-pain and Alzheimer's agitation, both in PhII trials that we expect to become increasingly visible on enrollment updates and data, fueling AVNR appreciation in later 2013 to 1H'14.”

Avanir Pharmaceuticals closed on Thursday at $2.89.