Sequenom (SQNM) rose 9.4% on Tuesday after an analyst declared that recent results for the company’s Maternit21 fetal genetic tests make it harder to argue that investors should short the stock.
“SQNM has effectively met development and commercial launch milestones in the last 12 months and has driven significant test volume in the first six months of launch,” wrote Wedbush analyst Zarak Khurshid in upgrading the stock to Neutral. Khurshid increased the price target to $5 from $3. The stock closed on Tuesday at $5.10.
“Now that the company is six months into launch and uptake appears to be consistently healthy, we believe it now makes sense to look farther out than 2012. Our prior $3 price target assumes $15 MM in 2012 T21 revenue and a 10x diagnostics revenue multiple plus 1x 2012 life science sales. Our new $5 price target assumes roughly $135 MM in 2014 diagnostics revenue (122k MaterniT21 tests), plus $25 MM for the diagnostics IP (consistent with prenatal IP deals) no cash & 122 MM shares outstanding discounted back at 15% annually.”