H.C. Wainwright raised its price target on Intellia Therapeutics to $25.00 from $15.00 while retaining a Buy rating following the U.S. regulator's decision to lift a clinical hold on the company's MAGNITUDE-2 Phase 3 trial. The move came as Intellia reported that the clinical hold was removed subject to additional protocol safeguards, allowing patient enrollment to resume.
The research firm's upgrade of Intellia's outlook was accompanied by an upward revision in its probability of approval estimate for the program to 35% from 25%, reflecting what H.C. Wainwright described as a narrowed risk profile. The firm also cited the prospect that Intellia's Nex-Z could function as a one-time curative therapy as part of the rationale behind the change.
Intellia's shares, which are trading at $14.83, have rallied nearly 65% year-to-date but remain roughly 48% below their 52-week high of $28.25. The amended Phase 3 plan increases targeted enrollment for MAGNITUDE-2 to approximately 60 patients from the prior plan of about 50, an adjustment that appears designed to strengthen risk management and the interpretability of trial data rather than to abandon the program.
Safety concerns that led to the hold were characterized by H.C. Wainwright as rare. The firm noted two Grade 4/5 liver events, including one fatality, among roughly 450 dosed patients, representing less than 0.5% of the total. Those events prompted a regulatory pause and subsequent protocol amendments intended to reduce risk.
While the regulatory development was constructive from an approval-path perspective, Intellia's cash flow picture remains a notable constraint. InvestingPro data show negative free cash flow of $412.63 million over the last twelve months. At the same time, the company's reported current ratio of 6.21 indicates it holds sufficient near-term liquidity to support ongoing operations despite the cash burn.
Market reaction and analyst coverage have been mixed. Alongside H.C. Wainwright's bullish reassessment, Baird raised its price target on Intellia from $4.00 to $7.00 and maintained a Neutral rating. Conversely, Jones Trading downgraded the stock from Buy to Hold after a patient death in the clinical program, noting the cause of death remains unclear. Evercore ISI also reduced its stance, moving the rating from Outperform to In Line and cutting its price target to $8.00 from $17.00, citing uncertainties around the ATTR program timeline despite communicating that efficacy updates had been encouraging.
The combined set of analyst actions underscores the twin dynamics shaping investor assessments: the regulatory clearance to resume the trial under more stringent safeguards has reduced some program risk and prompted higher approval probabilities, while recent serious safety events and a sizable negative free cash flow in the prior twelve months sustain questions about development risk and funding runway.
Intellia's decision to expand enrollment modestly to approximately 60 patients implies a continued commitment to the program and an effort to improve the statistical and safety-readout robustness of MAGNITUDE-2. Observers will be watching how the amended protocol and safeguards are implemented and whether further safety signals emerge as dosing resumes.
For now, the landscape for Intellia combines a regulatory green light to proceed with a higher bar for monitoring, divergent analyst views on near-term prospects, and a financial profile that includes substantial cash consumption offset by a strong current ratio.