UPDATE: Piper Jaffray Downgrades Geron Corporation to Neutral on Possible Safety Red Flags

Piper Jaffray downgraded Geron Corporation

from Overweight to Neutral and lowered the price target from $3.00 to $1.50. Piper Jaffray analyst Charles C. Duncan wrote, "Geron reported 4Q/FY12 earnings yesterday that were largely in-line with our and consensus expectations. Importantly, the company ended the year with $96MM in cash and considering 2013 cash burn guidance of $33MM, we project this can fund operations into 2015. We expect R&D spending to increase in 2014 with the expanded clinical studies of imetelstat. Updates from the investigator-sponsored trial (IST) in myelofibrosis (MF) are expected near YE13. However, given an ongoing investigation into lab value abnormalities from the essential thrombocythemia (ET) study read out at ASH '12, and opaque visibility on imetelstat progress in MF, we are lowering our rating to Neutral and lowering our price target from $3 to $1.50 for Geron." Geron Corporation closed at $1.29 on Wednesday.