Raymond James Downgrades Ascendis Pharma (ASND) to Outperform

Raymond James analyst Martin Auster downgraded Ascendis Pharma (NASDAQ: ASND) from Strong Buy to Outperform with a price target of $287.00.

The analyst comments: “Monday evening, ASND announced that it will regain rights on TransCon metabolic and cardiovascular programs from NVO and plans to develop multiple programs in these settings. Alongside this news, ASND announced a $400M share repurchase program. We are downgrading ASND from Strong Buy to Outperform and maintaining our $287 target price. While we continue to see ASND’s commercial portfolio and platform maintaining high long-term strategic value, our investor conversations over the past year suggested that optionality around ASND’s cardio/metabolic partnership with Novo was seen as the most likely attractor of a near-term strategic outcome. With rights reverting to ASND, we think the long-term story could deliver even greater upside eventually, but we do expect this to occur over an elongated timeline.

Nearer-term, we continue to believe fundamentals are solid, with potential for some upside to Yorvipath and Yuviwel consensus over the coming quarters. Trading at an EV of ~$17B on projected 2027 sales of $2.3B, we think the valuation reflects high expectations for sustained growth from the existing commercial portfolio. While we expect key asset Yorvipath to maintain its leadership position (and perhaps its functional monopoly) in the treatment of hypoparathyroidism for years to come, we note as a key risk to our thesis that ASND shares are highly levered to Yorvipath’s revenue contributions and are likely to have high sensitivity to an unexpected growth slowdown or the emergence of credible PTH competition.”

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Ascendis Pharma click here. For more ratings news on Ascendis Pharma click here.

Shares of Ascendis Pharma closed at $264.92 yesterday.

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