UPDATE: Piper Jaffray Initiates ZIOPHARM Oncology at Neutral on 2013 Cancer Development Outlook

Piper Jaffray initiated coverage on ZIOPHARM Oncology

with a Neutral rating and a $5.00 price target. Piper Jaffray said, "The company's management deploys its considerable oncology network to focus on developing improved chemotherapeutics, and we believe its lead candidate palifosfamide (pali', DNA-alkylator), will succeed in at least one indication based on clinical rationale and early data. Pali' is currently in two Phase III studies, for 1st-line soft tissue sarcoma (STS) and for 1st-line small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). That said, we are not sufficiently convinced by the stated PFS-driven regulatory strategy to make a call on the near term pivotal PFS data in STS." ZIOPHARM Oncology closed at $4.18 on Thursday.