UPDATE: Piper Jaffray Upgrades Medidata Solutions to Overweight on Revenue Growth

Piper Jaffray raised its rating on Medidata Solutions

from Neutral to Overweight and increased its target price from $31 to $54. Piper Jaffray commented, "We've always viewed the cloud as a better model for health care, but initially we failed to see the implications for the clinical trials market. We get it now. And because Medidata has the only cloud-based EDC application on the market, we believe the current sales momentum is sustainable. Growing at this rate is no easy task, it will take added investments to support an accelerating top line growth rate. We're fine with that. This is a SaaS model that we believe will grow 20% top line next year with a 99% retention rate, and huge opportunities to cross-sell and grow market share." Medidata Solutions closed at $42.02 on Wednesday.