BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:BCRX) Shares Down 7.3% on Analyst Downgrade

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:BCRX) fell 7.3% on Thursday after Royal Bank Of Canada downgraded the stock from an outperform rating to a sector perform rating. Royal Bank Of Canada now has a $11.00 price target on the stock. BioCryst Pharmaceuticals traded as low as $8.05 and last traded at $8.1630. 1,285,427 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 73% from the average session volume of 4,759,939 shares. The stock had previously closed at $8.81.

Other research analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $16.00 target price on shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals in a research report on Tuesday. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c)” rating on shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. HC Wainwright reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $32.00 price objective on shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals in a report on Tuesday, June 30th. Wedbush decreased their price objective on shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, August 6th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald raised their target price on BioCryst Pharmaceuticals from $27.00 to $29.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 30th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $20.40.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BioCryst Pharmaceuticals

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Nykredit A S bought a new position in BioCryst Pharmaceuticals during the second quarter worth $27,000. Larson Financial Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals by 1,188.0% during the fourth quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 3,542 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 3,267 shares during the period. IFP Advisors Inc raised its holdings in shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals by 2,515.3% during the second quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 3,243 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $32,000 after purchasing an additional 3,119 shares during the period. Allworth Financial LP bought a new position in shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals in the 2nd quarter worth about $52,000. Finally, Focus Partners Wealth bought a new position in shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals in the 3rd quarter worth about $77,000. 85.88% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Stock Performance

The company’s fifty day moving average price is $9.72 and its 200 day moving average price is $9.23. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -5.41 and a beta of 0.57.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:BCRX) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 5th. The biotechnology company reported $0.30 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.15 by $0.15. BioCryst Pharmaceuticals had a negative net margin of 40.90% and a negative return on equity of 86.89%. The firm had revenue of $218.25 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $183.28 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.15 earnings per share. BioCryst Pharmaceuticals’s quarterly revenue was up 33.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. will post -2.25 earnings per share for the current year.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Company Profile

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc is a clinical?stage biotechnology company headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, that focuses on the discovery and development of novel, oral small?molecule medicines for rare and serious diseases. Since its founding in 1986, the company has leveraged structure?based drug design to advance a pipeline of targeted therapeutics designed to address underlying disease mechanisms rather than just treat symptoms.

The company’s first commercial product, Orladeyo (berotralstat), is an oral kallikrein inhibitor approved for the prophylactic treatment of hereditary angioedema (HAE) in both the United States and Europe.