Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Shares Trading At Highs Following Positive Comments From FBR Capital

Shares of Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACHN) are trending higher Wednesday following positive comments from FBR Capital.

Andrew Berens maintained an Outperform rating and $12 price target.

Berens noted that Achillion’s NS5a inhibitor is considered to be the best in class.

Berens commented on the abstracts released by the company Wednesday stating, "We view this data as incrementally positive, as it shows ACHN’s NS5A appears to have potent activity when used in combination with a nuc backbone. This is important ahead of phase I proof-of-concept data for Achillion’s main value driver, the nucleotide polymerase inhibitor (nuc) ACH-3422, due in late fall 2014."

Berens finds that the data adds value to Achillion’s NS5A/nuc combination, making it an ideal takeover candidate.

Shares of Achillion Pharmaceuticals recently traded at $10.59, up 8.6 percent.