Bluebird Bio price target raised to $12 from $11 at BofA

BofA raised the firm’s price target on Bluebird Bio (BLUE) to $12 from $11 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. Bluebird shares meaningfully underperformed on Friday, which was likely due to post-approval labeling and pricing of its sickle cell gene therapy, but the firm continues to view Bluebird shares as undervalued and believes Lyfgenia can position the company to reach profitability with one additional financing, the analyst tells investors. While the FDA label for Lyfgenia comes with a black box warning for hematologic malignancy risk attributable to patients being predisposed and hematologic stress and Vertex’s (VRTX) cell-based CRISPR gene therapy, Casgevy, has a regular warning for off-target genome editing risk, Lyfgenia’s competitive edge on efficacy is its median duration of clinical efficacy follow up of 42 months, almost twice than Casgevy’s 19 months, the analyst added.