FDMT - Sangamo gains 11% as Wedbush upgrades on Fabry disease candidate

Sangamo Therapeutics ( NASDAQ: SGMO ) added ~11% on Monday after Wedbush Securities upgraded the genomic medicine company to Outperform from Neutral, noting a recent data readout for the company's Fabry disease candidate ST-920.

Announcing updated data from its Phase 1/2 STAAR clinical study, Sangamo ( SGMO ) said last week that the gene therapy, also known as isaralgagene civaparvovec, led to clinical benefit in patients with Fabry disease, a genetically driven metabolic disorder.

"Overall, we find the updated STAAR results support advancement into Ph3 given ST-920's efficacy and safety across patients with differing severity, degrees of organ impairment" and their status in enzyme replacement therapy (ERT), Wedbush analyst Andreas Argyrides wrote.

The analyst also pointed to the clinical hold on 4D Molecular Therapeutics's ( FDMT ) Fabry disease candidate 4D-310 and highlighted AVROBIO's ( AVRO ) decision to deprioritize its Fabry disease program.

Argyrides called a recent Freeline Therapeutics' ( FRLN ) data readout for its Fabry candidate FLT190 "uncompetitive."

"…we think all signs point to ST-920 as the frontrunning gene therapy candidate for Fabry," Argyrides added, raising the price target on Sangamo ( SGMO ) to $16 from $4 per share.

However, Seeking Alpha contributor Avisol Capital Partners issued a Hold rating on Sangamo ( SGMO ) early this month, noting that FLT190 is still at an early stage of development and "we won't see pivotal data for a while."

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