- JPMorgan maintains an Overweight rating and $12 price target on Orexigen (OREX +4.1%) following the company's positive Contrave announcement earlier in the week.
- In a note dated November 25th, analyst Cory Kasimov commented, "While details are expectedly sparse at this point, the press release notes that the interim analysis 'clearly achieved' its goal in ruling out excessive CV risk associated with the product. With an imminent NDA resubmission anticipated, we believe Contrave is well on its way to being approved in the US by mid 2014 and potentially in Europe later that year. In our opinion, [this] development should finally trigger a substantial narrowing of the still meaningful valuation gap that exists between OREX and the other two pure play obesity companies, Arena (ARNA +0.6%) and Vivus (VVUS -0.4%)."
- For good measure, some color on Empatic: This Phase 3 ready product also includes buproprion as one of its two components, similar to Contrave. By demonstrating a lack of CV risk in LIGHT, we believe that the value and future probability of success of Empatic ... also increases.