Wedbush Raises PT on Medivation to $81

Wedbush Securities has published a research report on Medivation

after the company confirmed abstracts for ASCO-GU were released last night. In the report, Wedbush writes, "In our opinion, the only question investors and the Street had regarding ‘3100's potential marketplace position involved side effects. Recall that while ‘3100 does not require prednisone co-administration like Zytiga does, there were some seizures at higher doses of ‘3100 in the Phase II. The open question after positive top-line survival data were released last year was whether the seizure rate in the AFFIRM trial would be cause for alarm. With the low 0.6% seizure rate in the AFFIRM trial, these concerns should be entirely alleviated. Furthermore, the incidence of other side effects, particularly Grade 3/4 fatigue occurrences were lower in the ‘3100 group at 6.3% than in the placebo group at 7.3%, which had been another concern coming out of the Phase II trial. Indeed, given that ‘3100 patients were exposed to drug longer (on average 8.3 months) than placebo patients were exposed to placebo (3 months), the lower rate of adverse events is remarkable." Wedbush maintains its Outperform rating and has raised the price target from $55 to $81 on Medivation, which closed yesterday at $55.41.