Cowen Suspends PTC Therapeutics Target, Puts Rating Under Review

Cowen’s Ritu Baral put the prior Outperform rating for PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: PTCT) under review, while suspending the previous $120 price target, after the company announced it had not been able to agree with German reimbursement authorities on price and may have to withdraw the Translarna™ [Ataluren] drug from the German market.

Currently, Germany is the only region in which the drug has been commercially launched. The recent development creates significant uncertainly around the EU commercial opportunity, analyst Ritu Baral said.

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She wrote further, “This jeopardizes our entire EU valuation of Translarna, given Germany’s position as the largest market in the EU as well as the process of reference pricing, which normally suggests that prices in Germany are among the highest in Europe.”

PTC Therapeutics has also received a refuse-to-file from the FDA on its Translarna DMD NDA. “We do not think that the agency rejection of the application was for benign or administrative reasons…As a result, our valuation of Translarna in the US is also in question,” Baral mentioned.