Boston, MA 03/17/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL), a clinical stage drug development company is making the right moves. The recent financial performance of the company as well as results from ongoing clinical trials has attracted both investors as well as analysts.
Why are the analysts upbeat?
Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) has been making the right moves. The pharmaceutical companies, particularly those engaged in clinical stage development rely very heavily on the product pipeline. The success or failure of a product can change a company’s fortunes overnight. The company is into development of small molecule drugs for treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases and muscle disorders. It has attracted the attention of several analysts who now rate the stock as a ‘buy’. These are backed by some good performance put in by the company during the fourth quarter. On revenues of $5.8 million, the company declared loss of $0.19 per share. Analysts were expecting the company to report loss of $0.25 per share. The loss totaled $16.9 million against $25.5 million reported for the same quarter last year. Even cash and cash equivalents are sufficient to cover the company till the second quarter of 2016.
The positive results:
Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) also reported encouraging news about one of its under development drugs, R118. R118 is an oral bioavailable AMPK activator and is being developed to treat peripheral artery disease (PAD). The preclinical research showed that the drug is effective in treating PAD. On the basis of this, the company plans to proceed towards phase 1 clinical trial. PAD affects almost 5% of the population above the 50 year age group. The market potential is immense considering the population of the U.S. as well as growth rate. Considering that population is expected to grow at a rate of 341 million by 2020, the estimated patient size is approximately 6 million by 2020.
Though Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) may not be able to capture 100% market share, the potential is still very attractive.
