HC Wainwright Sees Opportunity For Acadia's Alzheimer's Candidate

HC Wainwright says FDA's briefing document on ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc's ACAD pimavanserin was not unexpected.
It reiterates the stock with a Buy rating and a price target of $36.00.
Related: Why ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Shares Are Trading Higher Today?
The analysts believe the below points are left open for discussion when the AdCom members meet tomorrow:
- The closeness between Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD) and Alzheimer's disease dementia (ADD) in terms of disease mechanism argues approval of pimavanserin in ADP.
- Acadia's hypothesis that the robust response observed in PDD was due to the concomitant use of dopaminergic drugs resulting in a rapid relapse in the subgroup and thus resulting in the differential treatment effect in PDD when compared to the other subgroups.
- Interaction of treatment by dementia subgroup.
- Additional analyses of the AD subgroup's primary and the exploratory efficacy endpoints.
- Simulation study to see the effect of final analysis after completely removing the PDD subgroup.
- The effect of higher exposure of pimavanserin on the efficacy and analysis of plasma drug concentration and the primary endpoint.
HC Wainwrights concludes that the documents do not aggressively turn Acadia's rationale down, giving an opportunity to argue in favor of approval of pimavanserin in Alzheimer's disease psychosis (ADP).
Price Action: ACAD shares are up 5.83% at $19.79 during the market session on the last check Thursday.

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