Intellia Therapeutics price target lowered to $19 from $25 at Citi

Citi analyst David Lebowitz lowered the firm’s price target on Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA) to $19 from $25 and keeps a Neutral rating on the shares after the company presented detailed data from its Phase 2 study of NTLA-2002 versus placebo in hereditary angioedema, or HAE. Gene editing theoretically offers a one and done “functional cure,” but its irreversible nature makes the bar for market acceptance high, especially considering that the long-term safety implications of this approach are not known, says the analyst, who adds that it is unclear that NTLA-2002 is “sufficiently efficacious relative to currently available options.”