Piper Jaffray Maintains Overweight On Sequenom (SQNM)

Piper Jaffray is maintaining its Overweight rating on Sequenom Inc. SQNM. It has a $8 price target. In a note sent to clients, Piper Jaffray writes, "Sequenom announced the commencement of the Trisomy 21 (T21) pivotal clinical validation study, in line with our timeline expectations. Sequenom received the first set of clinical samples and expects to begin testing samples at the company's CMM San Diego facility during the first week of January. We view the start of the clinical validation study, the recent announcement of the acceptance of the R&D verification study for publication in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, as well as the recent secondary offering (management saw the verification study data prior to the offering) as positive indications for favorable T21 assay data (i.e. sensitivity and specificity in the high 90's). We remain Overweight SQNM shares." Shares of SQNM gained 45 cents yesterday to close at $7.72, a gain of 6.2%.