AFMD - Affimed downgraded to hold at Stifel as pipeline lacks development clarity
- Stifel has downgraded Affimed N.V. ( NASDAQ: AFMD ) to hold from buy as the firm no longer believes that three upcoming data updates will be positive for the biotech.
- Stifel also cut its price target for the biotech to $2 from $9 (5% upside based on Friday's close).
- Analyst Bradley Canino sees upcoming setbacks for AFM13-NK, AFM13 and AFM24, for, respectively, Hodgkin lymphoma, peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL), and solid tumors. The first two candidates are in phase 2, while AFM24 is in phase 1.
- While company management will meet with the US FDA by the end of the year, "we now anticipate a requirement for additional preclinical work and a re-run of the dose escalation that could lead the the pivotal trial to be delayed ~2 years based on the precedent of Takeda’s TAK-007," he wrote of AFM13-NK.
- A readout of AFM13 for PTCL in Q4 "feels like a coin flip," he added.
- "We have low confidence in the 3 monotherapy cohorts [of AFM24], which are furthest advanced, given there were no dose-escalation responses," Canino wrote.
- Seeking Alpha's Quant Rating views Affimed ( AFMD ) as a strong sell.
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Affimed downgraded to hold at Stifel as pipeline lacks development clarity