Citi Maintains on Intercept Pharmaceuticals

In a report published Friday, Citi analyst Yaron Werber maintained a Buy rating on Intercept Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ICPT), raising its price target from $60.00 to $400.00.

According to the report, the new price target reflects a ~45 percent upside to yesterday's close. The increase is driven by the analyst's new $4.7B risk-adjusted peak WW sales.

“It is estimated ~10-15% of the US population has some level of early stages of NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis/liver fibrosis) and ~6M (in the US alone) of these have a more advanced form of NASH preceding liver cirrhosis,” the report noted. “NASH is becoming recognized as a leading cause of liver transplants in the western world. There are no approved drugs for treatment, and OCA is the first agent to show a benefit here and is now positioned to establish itself as the standard of care. Also liver fibrosis has long been a target for large pharma/biotech and the scarcity of other drugs makes ICPT an attractive acquisition target.”

The report further asserted that despite yesterday's ~300 percent gain on positive NASH data for lead agent obeticholic acid, value is still seen as a possibility by analysts. ICPT closed Thursday at $470.00 with shares trading up at 69 percent.