Morphic Holding price target raised to $103 from $40 at Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo analyst Yanan Zhu raised the firm's price target on Morphic Holding to $103 from $40 and reiterates an Overweight rating on the shares following the Phase 1 single ascending dose data for the company's oral alpha4-beta7 inhibitor MORF-057 in healthy volunteers. The stock in midday trading is up 133%, or $48.05, to $84.21. The data support MORF-057's product profile as an oral Entyvio, achieving the same level of saturating receptor occupancy as Entyvio, which has roughly $4B in annual sales, along with a "clean" single-dose safety profile, Zhu tells investors in a research note. The analyst believes the data "substantially de-risks" MORF-057 and bodes well for the upcoming data readout from the multiple-ascending dose cohorts in mid-2021.