Bank of America Comments on Settlement Talks for Idenix Pharmaceuticals

Bank of America has published a research report on Idenix Pharmaceuticals

commenting on what to expect from settlement talks for the company. In the report, Bank of America writes, "A document was recently posted providing an update on the patent interference between GILD and IDIX related to patent ‘572 covering GILD's HCV nuc GS-7977. The document notes that by law, parties within three months of a patent interference declaration must enter into settlement discussions; IDIX and GILD (B-1-9; US$50.62) have discussed the possibility of a settlement and plan additional discussions in June. Given the settlement discussions are court mandated, it is difficult to draw conclusions or assign probabilities on the outcome of such discussions. We currently assign $6/sh in our IDIX for potential royalties on future sales of GS-7977." Bank of America maintains its Buy rating and $15 price objective on Idenix Pharmaceuticals, which closed yesterday at $10.08.