Shares of ARIAD Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ARIA) were under pressure Tuesday following a downgrade from Oppenheimer, which lowered ARIA from Outperform to Perform with a $23 price target. ARIA has been falling from its $25.40 high since last week, and technical indicators signal that the stock is now oversold and may be preparing for a bounce. In just a few months, ARIA’s lead candidate ponatinib may receive FDA approval; the company hopes for a decision and launch in 1Q13. Already the stock found support at $21.35 Tuesday morning and retraced to $22.22 in the early afternoon.
ARIAD’s most important value-driver rests in ponatinib’s approval as a treatment for intolerant chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and PH+ acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ ALL). The company finished filing a New Drug Application in September through a rolling submission, with hopes of adding a Priority Review designation to the process to accelerate the review period from 10 months to 6 months. Priority Review would likely set the PDUFA action date for March. PropThink covered ARIAD’s early-stage candidate AP26113 early this month, which can be found here.
See our interview with ARIAD Pharamaceuticals’ CEO Harvey Berger by clicking here.
