ADVERTISEMENT

JPMorgan Tells Clients to Sell Biotech It Helped Take Public

JPMorgan Tells Clients to Sell Biotech It Helped Take Public

(Bloomberg) -- In January, JPMorgan Chase & Co. was helping bring shares of Solid Biosciences Inc. to the public markets. Now, it’s telling clients to sell the stock.

JPMorgan analyst Anupam Rama downgraded his rating on the biotechnology company’s shares to underweight on Thursday with a $9 price target, after Solid Biosciences said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had halted its study of its experimental gene-transfer treatment for a rare degenerative disease that affects young boys after a patient was hospitalized. Rama previously rated the stock neutral with a $28 target.

The FDA’s halt and the downgrade sent shares plummeting. They were down by 64 percent to $9.52 at 12:46 p.m. on Thursday. That’s well below the $16 a share company went for in IPO that JPMorgan helped underwrite less than two months ago.

“There are now multiple concerns” with the company’s program, including how fast it can resume the trial and how much ground it may lose to competitors, Rama said in the note to clients announcing the downgrade.

“In our view, it will likely take compelling clinical data to regain confidence in management (not expected in the near-term),” Rama said.

Rama’s office directed questions to a JPMorgan spokesman, who declined to comment.

In the offering document, Solid Biosciences acknowledged that “our risk of failure is high.” That became evident when during the IPO process, the company disclosed that its study had been on partial hold following a November 2017 letter from regulators.

A company spokeswoman declined to comment on the stock-rating downgrade in an email.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Spalding in New York at rspalding@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Drew Armstrong at darmstrong17@bloomberg.net, Timothy Annett

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.