Analyst Wants Proof On Arrowhead Research Corp.'s Hepatitis B Drug

Arrowhead Research Corp.'s

hepatitis B medicine may provde a cure for the disease, but early data are unimpressive, an analyst said Tuesday. The Pasadena, California-based company got regulatory clearance on Monday for a small, multi-dose trial of the drug, called ARC-520. The three-month trial is expected to launch in May with interim data available in June. Jeffries' analyst Eun K. Yang cut her rating on Arrowhead to Hold, from Buy and slashed her target 70 percent to $9. Arrowhead changed hands recently at $7.46, down 6.75 percent. "We're waiting to see multi-dosing data," Yang said, noting that results from a small, single-dose trial released last year revealed lower-than-expected improvements for patients. Multi-dose therapy "will produce deeper results, potentially leading to a functional cure," Yang said, although she doesn't expect a successful product could reach the market until 2020. Potential peak sales for the drug, if successful, may hit $4.5 billion, according to Wang. Competing treatments are under development by privately held Replicor, Gilead Sciences Inc.

and Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp.

, with the best potential cure stemming from multiple-drug therapies, according to Yang. An earlier single-dose trial produced lower-than-expected results