Goldman Sachs Maintains Neutral on Human Genome Sciences Despite Weakened Benlysta Sales

Goldman Sachs has published a research report on Human Genome Sciences

after the company revealed weakened Benlysta sales in November. In the report, Goldman Sachs writes, "Benlysta November IMS sales declined by 3% on an average weekly basis over October (vs. 13% growth for October over September). We note that if we model no growth for Benlysta in December vs. November, we project that 4Q sales would come in at $26mn. As a result we are lowering our 4Q Benlysta estimate to $26mn from $32mn. Our 4Q11 EPS estimate changes to ($0.43) from ($0.42). We are maintaining our 2012 Benlysta estimate of $268mn (vs. consensus of $270mn) because at this point it is unclear if the 4Q trends are being driven by any seasonality. We further caution that since Benlysta is in the early stage of its launch, the correlation between IMS and company reported sales data could be somewhat limited." Goldman Sachs maintains its Neutral rating and $9 price target on Human Genome Sciences, which closed yesterday at $7.01.