Merus initiated with a Buy at Canaccord

Canaccord initiated coverage of Merus with a Buy rating and $45 price target. Merus is developing bispecific and trispecific antibodies for the treatment of cancer, notes the analyst, who views multispecific agents as a next-generation approach to both improve efficacy on existing targets and provide novel targets that have been intractable after the clinical success of monoclonal antibodies, or mAbs. Merus’ platform has generated “high-quality, diverse libraries of bispecific antibodies” and lead asset petosemtamab is improving on the validated EGFR-targeting approach to treat head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, or HNSCC, the analyst added.