Cantor Fitzgerald Reiterates Buy Rating, $60 PT on Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

In a report published Wednesday, Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated its Buy rating and $60.00 price target on Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

. Cantor Fitzgerald noted, “Management has previously guided to a $150-200M opportunity for this product. We currently model 2013 revenues of $8M, growing to $102M in 2020 (Bloomberg 2013 consensus is $18M). There are approximately 940,000 diagnosed HIV patients in the U.S., but we estimate that only a small portion (~15%) experience anti-retroviral therapy-related diarrhea. Because of its novel mechanism of action (as a chloride secretion blocker) and relatively good tolerability we believe the drug may also generate some off-label trial in other diarrhea subtypes. Fulyzaq is patent-protected until 2018 and has five years NCE exclusivity as well as additional pending patents. Since the drug is a botanical, we believe that its manufacturing process should represent a strong barrier to entry for generic filers. Pricing has not yet been announced.” Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd. closed on Monday at $40.47.