Antibe Therapeutics has an upside of 352 per cent, Echelon Wealth says

In an update to clients Wednesday, Echelon Wealth Partners analyst Douglas Loe remains bullish on clinical stage drug developer Antibe Therapeutics (Antibe Therapeutics Stock Quote, Chart TSXV:ATE), who on Wednesday announced the publication of comprehensive safety data for its naproxen derivative ATB-346.

Antibe announced that the previously press-released data would be published in the peer-reviewed British Journal of Pharmacology, an event which Loe takes as a positive.

“We stand by our long-held view that ATB-346 solidly demonstrated its attractive GI side effect profile, and that ATB-346 distinguished itself by mitigating a well-known side effect limitation of naproxen itself,” says Loe.

“Top-line GI ulceration data were already known to us and assimilated into our ATE investment thesis, as we described in our Jul/18 note, but it is still positive in our view to broaden awareness of ATB-346’s unambiguously positive safety profile in comparison to parent drug (and still commercially successful) naproxen in a peer-reviewed journal, while separately providing the validation of the study’s significance that peer review confers,” he says.

Loe says he expects Phase II efficiency data from Antibe’s 360-patient dose-ranging knee osteoarthritis pain data by the end of Q2 of 2020, while noting that Antibe has at least two preclinical hydrogen sulfide-releasing small molecules which could impact his valuation once they advance into formal clinical testing.

The analyst says that near-term data milestones will be key inflection points for ATE, including top line data anticipated this summer from the Phase II osteoarthritis trial.

Loe is maintaining his “Speculative Buy” rating and $1.40 target price, which represented a projected return on investment of 352 per cent at the time of publication.