On Monday, Oppenheimer reaffirmed its confidence in Crinetics Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:CRNX), maintaining an Outperform rating and a price target of $73.00.
The endorsement comes after Crinetics reported encouraging results from the open-label Phase 2 TouCAHn study of atumelnant in patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) on Friday. The study data revealed a dose-dependent decrease in adrenal androgen precursor A4, a significant biomarker in CAH. Patients receiving the highest dose of 120mg experienced the most substantial mean A4 reduction of 80% with a p-value of less than 0.0001, indicating a strong statistical significance.
The recent findings build upon the initial positive results presented at the ENDO conference in June and demonstrate both rapid and sustained A4 reductions without any observed treatment-related adverse events (AEs). These results bolster Crinetics's plans to launch a Phase 3 trial for adult CAH patients in the first half of 2025, followed by a Phase 2b/3 trial targeting pediatric CAH patients.
The analyst at Oppenheimer highlighted the recent approval of Neurocrine (NASDAQ:NBIX) Biosciences' crinecerfront, a corticotropin-releasing factor 1 (CRF1) antagonist, and posited that Crinetics's atumelnant has the potential to offer differentiated efficacy. Atumelnant works by blocking the action of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) at its target organ, which is a different mechanism compared to crinecerfront.
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