Piper Jaffray Maintains Overweight on Neurocrine Biosciences (NBIX)

Piper Jaffray is out with its report today on Neurocrine Biosciences

, maintaining Overweight. In a note to clients, Piper Jaffray writes, "We held meetings with management ahead of the end of Phase II meeting with the FDA for elagolix and VMAT2 Phase IIa data. We expect greater clarity of Phase III design and timing of initiation following the FDA discussion. Official minutes should be released in 4 weeks and management expects to disclose specifics during its 1Q11 earnings release. Near term, we anticipate VMAT2 Phase IIa data in tardive dyskinesia within the next two weeks. We believe that the VMAT2 opportunity is underappreciated by the Street and should provide significant upside to shares. We remain buyers of NBIX based on the >$1bn market opportunity of elagolix in endometriosis, which we expect to reach the market in 2014, and $500mn opportunity of VMAT2 in tardive dyskinesia alone." At the time of posting, shares of NBIX were trading at $6.68, down 0.15% from Thursday's close.