Dynavax
Market value: $448.0 million
TipRanks consensus price target: $16.00 (229% upside potential)
TipRanks consensus rating: Strong Buy
Dynavax (DVAX, $4.86), which takes advantage of the body's own immune responses to create effective vaccines, is among the health and pharmaceutical companies battling the COVID-19 coronavirus. However, while it has grabbed headlines for its collaborations on developing a COVID-19 vaccine, DVAX already has an approved vaccine for hepatitis B.
For the first quarter of 2020, sales of Dynavax's Heplisav-B came in at $10.5 million. While this missed the $11.3 million consensus estimate, it surpassed H.C. Wainwright analyst Edward White's $10 million call. Sales did slip by 0.5% on a sequential basis, which was chalked up to the pandemic.
But White pointed out that in late March, Dynavax said the European Medicines Agency accepted the company's application for Heplisav-B, which has a targeted approval in the first quarter of 2021. So White remains firm on this year's goals and sees big things down the road. "We maintain our 2021 revenue estimate of $74.4 million," he writes. "We estimate sales will rise to $236 million in 2028."
Heplisav-B also is being studied in other indications. Dynavax recently published interim data from the HBV-4 trial enrolling patients undergoing hemodialysis showing that it was both effective and well-tolerated. White is looking forward to the release of the complete results.
"Full data from the trial are still expected in 2H20 as this study has not been impacted by the pandemic; people on dialysis need to remain on dialysis despite COVID-19," he writes. "Hemodialysis represents about 16% of the hepatitis B market, and we believe increased share and overall growth of this market could drive sales of Heplisav-B."
White has a Buy rating and a $12 price target on shares, conveying high confidence - and the potential for shares to jump 147% over the next year. A small group of analysts covering the stock have dished out three Buy ratings versus no Holds or Sells over the past quarter. You can learn more about the analyst community's views on DVAX via TipRanks' consensus breakdown.
