UPDATE: Cantor Fitzgerald Upgrades Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Following Model Update

In a report published Wednesday, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Irina Rivkind upgraded Ironwood Pharmaceuticals IRWD from Sell to Hold, and raised the price target from $7.00 to $10.00.

In the report, Cantor Fitzgerald noted, “Ironwood reported revenues of $9.7M and loss per share of ($0.57), which beat FactSet consensus estimates of $8.2M and ($0.68) and our estimates of $3.8M and ($0.80). The revenue beat was driven by a large API sell-in to EU partner Almirall, along with unexpected milestones for the U.K. and German launches. Ironwood is also amortizing more revenue from Astellas and AstraZeneca than we had expected. Partner Forest reported 2Q:13 Linzess revenue of $28.8M (relative to consensus estimates of $24.3M), which is based on four weeks of wholesaler inventories (which are expected to normalize at three weeks). JV and R&D costs were also lower than we expected. Our SELL thesis has played out, and we no longer see the stock as overvalued because we have more comfort about expense control. We therefore upgrade IRWD from SELL to HOLD and raise our PT from $7 to $10.”

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals closed on Tuesday at $11.29.