Wells Fargo analyst David Maris, in a research note titled "Odd Timing for Months Old News That Doesn't Matter," expresses skepticism over the Wall Street Journal's report last night that Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) received and rejected a takeover approach from Takeda and TPG in the spring and that there are currently no talks ongoing. "We are always skeptical of takeover speculation that comes on a Friday (or a Thursday night after the close) before a long weekend, let alone on the last trading day of a month with a supposed overseas buyer in the opposite time zone, with an event being reported that supposedly occurred in some nonspecific time months ago," Maris wrote. He adds, "Additionally, we find it difficult to believe that if the approach occurred, we would have only heard about this now, given the fall in the shares and the fiduciary responsibility for a company to have at least engaged in preliminary discussions." He feels that should the speculation be true, it is not representative of any broader strategic interest among pharma companies. He also points out he met with Novartis (NVS) management this week and that they expressed no interest in Valeant's Bausch & Lomb business. Maris calls this a "fresher and more relevant data point" relative the Journal's story. Maris says the Journal's story means "nothing" and he keeps an Underperform rating on Valeant. The stock traded up 7%, or $2.00, to $28.94 following the report.

TD Cowen analyst Yaron Werber raised the firm's price target on BeiGene (BGNE) to $236 from $235 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The firm updated its model to reflect lower collaborative revenue given termination of Novartis (NVS) agreement for tisle in Sep 2023.