Orexigen Therapeutics (OREX) Stock Surging Today on Heavy Volume
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Orexigen Therapeutics (OREX) are surging, up 12.83% to $8.62 on very heavy volume Wednesday afternoon, adding to gains from yesterday when it jumped about 50% in intraday trading on reports that the company's weight loss pill has heart-safety benefits, Bloomberg reported.
This morning, analysts at Leerink raised their price target to $11 from $8, while maintaining an "outperform" rating. The firm said their specialists' opinions of Contrave improved significantly following Tuesday's data.
Similarly, analysts at Piper Jaffray raised their price target yesterday to $26 from $16, and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch upped its price target to $13 from $10.
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The drugmaker said its diet pill Contrave had cardiovascular benefits, according to its research data that was not meant to be released to the public, Bloomberg added.
Orexigen said obese patients on Contrave lowered their risk of having a heart attack, stroke or dying from heart disease by almost half compared to patients on a placebo.
The conclusions were based off of early data from Orexigen's study of 8,910 obese patients.
About 34.06 million shares of Orexigen have exchanged hands as of 2:58 p.m. ET today, compared to its average trading volume of about 5.06 million shares a day.
La Jolla, CA-based Orexigen is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of a pharmaceutical product and the development of a product candidate for the treatment of obesity.