Vertex Pharmaceuticals price target raised to $348 from $343 at RBC Capital

RBC Capital analyst Brian Abrahams raised the firm’s price target on Vertex Pharmaceuticals to $348 from $343 but keeps a Sector Perform rating on the shares. The analyst notes the firm’s key opinion leader call on the prospects of VX-548 citing the drug’s “mechanistic rationale, consistent activity over time, and very clean safety profile”, along with his comfort with the phase 2 designs and placebo behavior, that should make it likely the phase 3 data will look similar. RBC adds that however that the leader was also concerned with the magnitude of pain reductions – something that “maintains some risk” around the phase 3 readouts.