Piper Jaffray Upgrades Edwards Lifesciences

Piper Jaffray is upgrading shares of Edwards Lifesciences

to Overweight from Neutral, and raising its price target to $77 from $53 on strong results from the PARTNER trial. In the research note, Piper Jaffray writes, "We are upgrading Edwards Lifesciences from Neutral to Overweight based on the robust results from the PARTNER trial which were published last night in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study showed that at one year, patient treated with the Sapien valve reported an all cause mortality rate 39% lower than the control arm (30.7% vs. 50.7%, p < 0.001). Given the strength of the data, we think the U.S. sales ramp in 2012 is going to be faster than previously expected fueling more EPS growth. As such, we're shifting to an Overweight rating with a price target of $77 based on EW trading at 27x our revised C12 EPS estimate of $2.85." Shares of Edwards Lifesciences closed the regular session at $59.70 yesterday, a gain of 35 cents. Shares are skyrocketing pre-market, gaining $7.30 or 12.2% to $67.00.