Piper Jaffray Sees Strength In Geron After News Of Drug Development

Piper Jaffray on Monday issued a company note on Geron Corporation (NASDAQ: GERN) after news of new drug developments at the ASH 2015 conference. Piper Jaffray rates Geron as Overweight and raised the company's price target from $5.00 to $10.00.

Analysts Charles Duncan and Sarah Weber wrote, “With two strategically designed Phase II studies in high unmet needs (SOC-failed MF and MDS), we believe enrollment progress and data in the next 12-24 months could generate significant value creation…The activity observed to date... is seen by clinical researchers as one of the most promising emerging, novel mechanisms in the field, and fully supportive of advancement to later stage trials.”

Geron focuses its business operations on the development of imetelstat which is used in the discovery and development of therapeutic oncological medications and treatments. Consensus results from the clinical trials of its imetelstat drug showed positive drug efficacy with many patients seeing results of transfusion independence in 28 weeks. Researchers also stated they were confident that the drug is safe, and will look toward new patient information in further clinical trials to conclude its thesis behind the drug.

Risks to the company's stock is that Geron’s drug portfolio is very concentrated in imetelstat and doesn't have many options for drug products if the clinical trials fail to show further efficacy and safety.

After hitting a high of $5.29, shares of Geron recently traded at $4.91, down 2.9 percent.