Aerovate Therapeutics downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Guggenheim

Guggenheim downgraded Aerovate Therapeutics (AVTE) to Neutral from Buy and removed the firm’s previous $50 price target on the shares after the company’s AV-101 failed to show statistically significant or clinically meaningful results on the primary endpoint or several important secondary endpoints in the Phase 2b portion of the IMPAHCT trial in pulmonary arterial hypertension, or PAH. Given AV-101 is Aerovate’s only clinical program, the firm does not assign a price target to shares and adds that today’s news could be seen as a positive for Gossamer Bio (GOSS), which has inhaled seralutinib in Phase 3 development for PAH and will be starting Phase 3 testing in PH-ILD in mid-2025. Gossamer’s Phase 2 TORREY data for seralutinib were “somewhat underwhelming,” but the company now has one less competitor to deal with in the PAH space, the analyst tells investors.