Despite Durability Questions, BMO Upgraded This Natural-Killer Cell Therapy Oncology Stock

Vandana Singh
1 min read
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In this article:

  • BMO Capital Market upgraded Fate Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: FATE) to Outperform from Market Perform. The analyst believes Fate's iPSC platform is uniquely positioned in the cell therapy space.

  • But, the analyst wants to focus on the debate on whether engineered NK cells provide CAR-T-like efficacy and convenience, and safety.

  • "Early data for lead programs have been encouraging, particularly in safety concerns. For DLBCL, the median duration of response is misleading since it could reflect only a few months, but there could still be several patients with continued complete responses", BMO writes.

  • "So we would be looking for a tail on the Kaplan-Meier curves for FT519 and FT596," the analyst added.

  • In multiple myeloma, cures are less likely, so median progression-free survival is the benchmark.

  • BMO likes the risk/reward heading into 2H updates, while durability remains a major question.

  • At its current valuation, The analyst thinks there's a meaningful upside to platform updates in 2H and 2023.

  • With the price target of $47, implying ~57% upside to current shares, several updates are expected from FATE across its NK cell platform by the year-end.

  • Price Action: FATE shares are up 4.14% at $29.69 during the market session on the last check Tuesday.

Latest Ratings for FATE

Date

Firm

Action

From

To

Mar 2022

HC Wainwright & Co.

Maintains

Buy

Dec 2021

Morgan Stanley

Maintains

Equal-Weight

Dec 2021

Wedbush

Upgrades

Neutral

Outperform

View More Analyst Ratings for FATE

View the Latest Analyst Ratings

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