Hot Medical Companies To Invest In 2015

Hot Medical Companies To Invest In 2015: Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (ICPT)

Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc., incorporated on September 4, 2002, is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of therapeutics to treat chronic liver diseases utilizing its bile acid chemistry.The Companys product candidates treat orphan and more prevalent liver diseases for which there are limited therapeutic solutions. The Companys product candidate, obeticholic acid, or OCA, is a bile acid analog, a chemical substance that has a structure based on a naturally occurring human bile acid. It is developing OCA initially for primary biliary cirrhosis, or PBC, as a second line treatment for patients who have an inadequate response to or who are unable to tolerate standard of care therapy and therefore need additional treatment. The Company is conducting a Phase 3 clinical trial of OCA in PBC, which it calls the POISE trial, that serves as the basis for seeking regulatory approval in the United States and Europe. As of December 19, 20 12, the Company completed enrollment of the POISE trial with 217 patients.

The Companys clinical focus is on the development of OCA, orally administered, first-in-class FXR agonist that has broad liver-protective properties and may a variety of chronic insults to the liver that cause fibrosis, which can eventually lead to cirrhosis, liver transplant and death. The Company owns worldwide rights to OCA outside of Japan and China, where it has licensed the compound to Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma, or DSP, and granted it an option to license OCA in certain other Asian countries.The Company is sponsoring an independent study involving more than ten leading PBC centers in North America and Europe, or collectively the Global PBC Study Group, that are pooling their long-term patient data to evaluate the relationship between biochemical and clinical endpoints.

The Company competes with Eli Lilly, Exelixis, Inc., Phenex Pharmaceuticals AG! , , Johnson & Johnson , NovImmune SA, Dr. Falk Pharma GmbH, Galmed Medical Research Ltd., Immuron Ltd., Mochida Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., NasVax Ltd. , Raptor Pharmaceutical Corp. Astellas Pharma US, Inc., AstraZeneca, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Tioga Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Lisa Levin]

  Intercept Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ICPT) shares fell 2.60% to $288.66 after falling 3.66% on Thursday.

  Posted-In: market losersNews Movers & Shakers Intraday Update Markets

• [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

  Equities Trading UP
  Shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ICPT) got a boost, shooting up 289.85 percent to $282.21 after the company reported that the FLINT trial of obeticholic acid has been stopped early and the NASH primary endpoint has been met.

• [By John Udovich]

  Its a new year and the first one and a half trading weeks of 2014 has not disappointed biotech investors as the sector and mid cap or small cap biotech orpharma stocks like Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: ICPT), Epizyme Inc (NASDAQ: EPZM), Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp (NASDAQ: TNXP) and TNI BioTech Inc (OTCQB: TNIB) either surging or producing some news plus there have been IPO filings for future listings forFlexion Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FLXN), Aldexa Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ALDX), Retrophin (NASDAQ:RTRX) and Dicerna Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: DRNA). Consider the following news so far this year:

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Intercept Pharmaceuticals (ICPT) hastaken investors on a wild ride this year. After more than quintupling, it’s now up “only” 235% in 2014. And Deutsche Bank thinks it’s time to buy.

  Special to The Chronicle

  Deutsche Bank analyst Alethia Young and team explain why they see “good risk/reward” in Intercept Pharmaceuticals:

  Intercept’s lead asset is obeticholic acid (OCA) for treatment o! f liver d! iseases like PBC and NASH. Our conviction is based on 1) OCA will take meaningful stake in a large NASH market, 2) full results from the FLINT trial will be supportive of further development from a regulatory & commercial perspective, and 3) we think in the long-term that OCA will be a treatment for many other liver diseases beyond PBC and NASH…

  On good data, we think Intercept trades to $336-$404/sh. On bad data, we think Intercept trades to $110-$146/sh. We think shares currently reflect ~35% chance of success for NASH. We see some downside protection in the fact that if NASH fails in Ph2b, the co will likely price PBC higher. We assume $65K, but every $5K in pricing is worth about $9/sh. At 100% success for PBC & NASH, our FV is $518/sh.

  Our $395 TP is based on a probability adjusted DCF analysis (-100% terminal growth rate) and 11% discount rate which is in-line with biotech peers.

  Shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals have gained 2.9% to $229.03 at 11:44 a.m. today.

source from Top Penny Stocks For 2015:http://www.topstocksforum.com/hot-medical-companies-to-invest-in-2015.html