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Mirati Therapeutics down for third day as cancer data leads to analyst downgrades

  • Mirati Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MRTX) is down 11% in Thursday morning trading, the third day in a row it is in the red.
  • The stock's decline follows phase 2 data on its candidate adagrasib in combination with Merck's (MRK) Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in non-small cell lung cancer released on Tuesday.
  • As a result, three analysts from BMO, Citi, and JP Morgan downgraded shares.
  • Citi's Yigal Nochomovitz cut his rating to neutral from buy and also trimmed his price target to $53 from $121 (~7% upside based on Wednesday's close).
  • He noted that the data is "not, in our opinion, clearly superior to the benchmarks cited by" the company.
  • BMO David Seigerman is not optimistic about the combination's future as he projects a "long, expensive, and challenging path to Phase 3 data."
  • Seigerman lowered his rating to market perform from outperform and cut his price target to $59 from $110 (19% upside).
  • Since Monday's close, Mirati has lost ~53%.