April 17, 2019
BIOINVEST NEWS: Ionis (IONS)
IONS Down on Competitive Threat From NVS’ Zolgensma For Sprinraza, Raising BUY & TARGET
An update from Spinraza competitor Zolgensma (NVS) and the shift out of health care stocks are driving today’s decline. Shares are down 14% after Novartis presented a positive update to its STRIVE study for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) yesterday at the MDA 2019 meeting. In our view, Spinraza is firmly entrenched with SMA patients and along with partner BIIB, we do not believe that many will switch to a gene therapy when they are already happy with Spinraza. In addition to the data showing that Spinraza is superior, there are remaining safety questions for Zolgensma which recently reported a patient death in a European trial that appears to be caused by the gene therapy.
IONS has had a great start to 2019 and the investment story is as strong as ever. In our view, today’s pullback is excessive and we are buyers at current prices.