Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc., an off-the-shelf T-cell immunotherapy company, develops treatments for patients with cancer, autoimmune, and viral diseases in the United States. It is developing tabelecleucel, a T-cell immunotherapy that is Phase 3 clinical trials for the treatment of epstein-barr virus (EBV) driven post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease, as well as hematologic and solid tumors, including nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The company is also developing next-generation CAR T immunotherapies for patients with hematologic malignancies and solid tumors, including ATA2271 and ATA3271 for mesothelin; and ATA2431 and ATA3219 for B-cell malignancies, as well as ATA188 for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. In addition, it develops ATA368 program for patients with human papillomavirus associated cancers. Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc. has a license agreement with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; license, and research and development collaboration agreement with QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute; and strategic collaboration with H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, as well as Bayer AG for mesothelin-targeted CAR T-cell therapies for solid tumors. The company was incorporated in 2012 and is headquartered in South San Francisco, California.
Wall Street Analyst Weigh In
A number of research analysts recently issued reports on ATRA shares. Canaccord Genuity Group lowered their price target on shares of Atara Biotherapeutics from $67.00 to $50.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of Atara Biotherapeutics from an "overweight" rating to a "neutral" rating and set a $10.00 target price for the company. in a report on Wednesday, July 13th. Citigroup cut shares of Atara Biotherapeutics from a "neutral" rating to a "sell" rating and lowered their target price for the company from $8.00 to $3.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group dropped their target price on shares of Atara Biotherapeutics from $4.00 to $3.00 and set a "sell" rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, August 9th. Finally, HC Wainwright dropped their price objective on shares of Atara Biotherapeutics from $31.00 to $29.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, May 23rd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $20.14.
Atara Biotherapeutics Stock Up 25.6 %
Atara Biotherapeutics stock opened at $5.84 on Friday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $5.39 and a 200-day simple moving average of $7.95. Atara Biotherapeutics has a 52-week low of $2.83 and a 52-week high of $20.04. The firm has a market capitalization of $551.06 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.29 and a beta of 1.09.
Atara Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ:ATRA - Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August 8th. The biotechnology company reported $0.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.91) by $1.09. Atara Biotherapeutics had a negative net margin of 344.87% and a negative return on equity of 111.20%. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted ($0.91) EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Atara Biotherapeutics will post -3.1 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Insider Buying and Selling
In other news, CEO Pascal Touchon sold 14,220 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.20, for a total transaction of $102,384.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 472,093 shares in the company, valued at $3,399,069.60. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, CFO Utpal Koppikar sold 5,582 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $5.32, for a total transaction of $29,696.24. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 207,592 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,104,389.44. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Pascal Touchon sold 14,220 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.20, for a total transaction of $102,384.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 472,093 shares of the company's stock, valued at $3,399,069.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 40,811 shares of company stock worth $243,848 over the last 90 days. 4.00% of the stock is owned by insiders.