Juno Therapeutics (JUNO) Stock Downgraded at JPMorgan

Juno Therapeutics’ (JUNO) stock rating was cut to ‘neutral’ from ‘overweight’ at JPMorgan after the biopharma company’s clinical trial was put on hold after patient deaths.
By Kaya Yurieff ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Juno Therapeutics' (JUNO) stock rating was slashed to "neutral" from "overweight" at JPMorgan after the biopharmaceutical company's phase 2 clinical trial was put on clinical hold by the FDA after patient deaths.

The firm also reduced its price target to $39 from $63 on shares of the Seattle-based company.

Juno reminds investors that the business of biotech, developing new medicines that are effective and reasonable safe, is hard to get right, TheStreet's Adam Feuerstein wrote in an article this morning.

The deaths followed the recent addition of chemotherapy drug to the pre-conditioning regimen, the company said in a statement after yesterday's market close. Two adult patients died last week and three in total. 

The biopharma company has proposed to the FDA that the clinical trial known as "ROCKET" continue using its JCAR015 drug with cyclophosphamide pre-conditioning alone.

"The company is taking steps to get ROCKET restarted ASAP by going back to pre-conditioning with cyclophosphamide alone. On the one hand, this does appear to be isolated to JCAR 015, and management is confident it won't have a collateral impact on the other programs," JPMorgan wrote in an analyst note earlier today.

However, this further highlights how early this technology is in its evolution, the firm said.

"We'd be more comfortable if the mechanism behind the neurotoxicity was better understood. Bottom line, we still have high hopes for JUNO's CAR-T platform, but given the near/medium term uncertainty, we see better opportunities elsewhere in our universe," JPMorgan said.

Shares of Juno are plunging 23.08% to $31.40 in pre-market trading Friday.

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