Merus price target raised to $111 from $93 at Guggenheim

Guggenheim raised the firm’s price target on Merus (MRUS) to $111 from $93 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares after the company announced dosing of the first patient in its registrational Phase 3 trial of petosemtamab in first-line recurrent/metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, or r/m HNSCC, in combination with Merck’s (MRK) Keytruda. The dosing comes ahead of schedule and is the second Phase 3 trial of peto in HNSCC following the recent initiation of the second- to third-line Phase 3 trial in July, the analyst tells investors. The firm believes Phase 3 data will be available in 2026 to support a potential commercial launch as a “best-in-class therapy for a broad HNSCC patient population,” the analyst added.