Biogen Price Target Lowered To $280 From $402 At Piper Jaffray

Piper Jaffray analyst Christopher Raymond lowered his price target for Biogen shares to $280 from $402 after the company announced the discontinuation of aducanumab development in mild Alzheimer's disease. The stock in premarket trading is down 26.5%, or $85.04, to $235.55.

While removing aducanumab from a sum-of-the-parts analysis takes $70 per share from the stock, a more sizeable downward price target revision is appropriate as aducanumab "also served as a bit of a counter-weight to competitive threats and concerns elsewhere in the portfolio," Raymond tells investors in a research note titled "That's Going to Leave a Mark."

The analyst, however, keeps an Overweight rating on Biogen. "While we wish we had the foresight to side-step this event, we do think the right thing to do here is to let the dust settle and perform a more comprehensive thesis check," he writes.