BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:BCRX) Price Target Cut to $16.00 by Analysts at Needham & Company LLC

Key Points

• Needham & Company cut its price target on BioCryst from $18 to $16 but kept a buy rating, with an implied ~80.9% upside; the consensus target is higher at $20.10 and the stock carries a "Moderate Buy" average.
• Shares traded at $8.85 (down ~2%) with a market cap of about $2.25B, and the company posted a large quarterly EPS miss of ($2.98) versus $0.06 expected while beating revenue at $156.4M (up 7.5% year‑over‑year).
• Insider Alane P. Barnes sold 150,000 shares in March (reducing her stake by 27.24%), and institutional investors own roughly 85.9% of the stock.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:BCRX - Get Free Report) had its target price cut by investment analysts at Needham & Company LLC from $18.00 to $16.00 in a research report issued on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a "buy" rating on the biotechnology company's stock. Needham & Company LLC's target price would suggest a potential upside of 80.89% from the company's previous close.

BCRX has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Royal Bank Of Canada reduced their target price on BioCryst Pharmaceuticals from $14.00 to $13.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 30th. Weiss Ratings upgraded BioCryst Pharmaceuticals from a "sell (d-)" rating to a "hold (c)" rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 4th. Finally, Evercore started coverage on BioCryst Pharmaceuticals in a report on Wednesday, February 18th. They issued an "outperform" rating and a $17.00 price objective on the stock. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $20.10.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Stock Down 2.0%

Shares of NASDAQ BCRX traded down $0.19 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $8.85. The company had a trading volume of 6,710,668 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,070,783. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.37 and a beta of 0.57. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $9.03 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $7.80. BioCryst Pharmaceuticals has a fifty-two week low of $6.00 and a fifty-two week high of $11.31.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:BCRX - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 6th. The biotechnology company reported ($2.98) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.06 by ($3.04). The company had revenue of $156.41 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $151.12 million. BioCryst Pharmaceuticals had a negative return on equity of 84.33% and a net margin of 30.16%.The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 7.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.20 EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that BioCryst Pharmaceuticals will post 0.26 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at BioCryst Pharmaceuticals

In related news, insider Alane P. Barnes sold 150,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $9.15, for a total transaction of $1,372,500.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 400,703 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,666,432.45. This represents a 27.24% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 5.10% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BioCryst Pharmaceuticals

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Larson Financial Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals by 1,188.0% in the 4th quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 3,542 shares of the biotechnology company's stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 3,267 shares in the last quarter. Focus Partners Wealth acquired a new position in BioCryst Pharmaceuticals in the third quarter valued at $77,000. Farther Finance Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals by 326.8% during the third quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 10,590 shares of the biotechnology company's stock worth $80,000 after purchasing an additional 8,109 shares in the last quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its stake in BioCryst Pharmaceuticals by 26.1% during the 4th quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 10,231 shares of the biotechnology company's stock worth $80,000 after buying an additional 2,115 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vestmark Advisory Solutions Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals in the third quarter valued at approximately $81,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 85.88% of the company's stock.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Company Profile

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc is a clinical‐stage biotechnology company headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, that focuses on the discovery and development of novel, oral small‐molecule medicines for rare and serious diseases. Since its founding in 1986, the company has leveraged structure‐based drug design to advance a pipeline of targeted therapeutics designed to address underlying disease mechanisms rather than just treat symptoms.

The company's first commercial product, Orladeyo (berotralstat), is an oral kallikrein inhibitor approved for the prophylactic treatment of hereditary angioedema (HAE) in both the United States and Europe.

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