Piper Jaffray Still Overweight Biogen But Notes It's Least-Preferred Play; Hikes Celgene Target

In separate reports published Tuesday, Piper Jaffray analyst Joshua E. Schimmer maintained Overweight ratings on both

and

, while commenting on their performance in 2Q and 2H. Analyst Joshua Schimmer said that Biogen seemed to be "a company struggling to find an attractive path forward" in view of the challenges being faced by its MS franchise, emerging competitive threats, and "a highly speculative pipeline for which we believe management has undue confidence." In the report Piper Jaffray noted, "Tecfidera appears sluggish in the U.S. and outer-year estimates probably need to come in. New MS entrants loom, including CELG/ RCPT's ozinamod, which we are disappointed that BIIB let get away. The company's hemophilia franchise faces LT competitive threats." Schimmer commented that the steps being taken by Biogen to boost its pipeline were not enough to offset "a pipeline of highly speculative science with its anti-amyloid franchise for Alzheimer's, its antiLINGO antibody for MS, and Tysabri for stroke and SPMS." "Upcoming aducanumab 6mg data are a catalyst as well although we are highly skeptical about this program," Schimmer wrote. Piper Jaffray raised the price target for Celgene from $147 to $160, saying that the recent preannouncement of 2Q results and the acquisition of

had recently boosted the company's shares, and that the company continued to "set the pace for strategic M&A and partnering." Schimmer expects the back half of this year to be "fairly quiet," although steady earnings growth and operational execution "should further drive upside to CELG shares as it represents one of the most attractive PEG ratios in biotech."