Bluebird Shares Snowballing Amid Positive LentiGlobin Data; Handful Of Analysts Respond

Shares of Bluebird Bio Inc BLUE are rallying in Monday’s pre-market session, spiking 5.64 percent to $191; The stock closed at $180.81 after Friday’s session.

The catalyst for the spike was due to encouraging results of an experimental gene therapy (LentiGlobin).

A French teenager, who had a severe sickle cell disease, is continuously improving following a one-time gene therapy treatment supplied by Bluebird. Nearly all of the red-blood cells of the teen were sickled, or deformed, before the one time treatment. Six months prior to the one time treatment, almost half of the teenager’s oxygen carrying red blood cells were functioning and normal.

In the past three months, the teenage boy did not require and transfusions, nor hospitalization. Bluebird CEO Nick Leschly comments "You just changed a 13-year-old kid's entire view of the world. That's the human side which drives us." Bluebird believes it can reduce and even eliminate the life-threatening sickle cell disease.

Maxim Group have reiterated Bluebird at a Buy rating alongside a $190 price target. Maxim comments that anti-sickling Hemoglobin has risen 45 percent and believes that a cure to sickle-cell disease could be “worth quite a lot.”

Piper Jaffray rated Bluebird at Market Overweight with a targeted price of $213. Piper commented that “the clinical benefit of LentiGlobin in SCD was impressive.”

Cory Kasimov of JPMorgan increased his price target for Bluebird from $200 to $244 while reiterating the stock at Market Overweight. He notes that the teenage patient is hospital-free, transfusion free, and most importantly, levels of anti-sickling hemoglobin continue to rise in the patient.

Bluebird shares have been snowballing, nearly doubled year-to-date.