Juno Therapeutics stock drops 5% after BTIG downgrades to sell

Juno Therapeutics Inc. shares dropped 5.2% in premarket trade Thursday after BTIG downgraded it to sell from neutral, with a $12 price target. Juno shares closed at $23.73 on Wednesday. The company is "trailing" competitors like Kite Pharma Inc. and Novartis AG to market and there is "little demonstrative proof" that Juno drugs work better or have fewer life-threatening side effects, BTIG analyst Dane Leone said. The company's lack of progress casts questions about its management, Leone said, who also criticized Juno Chief Executive Hans Bishop. "We do not think the impetus is currently in place (activism) but the company has built out a CAR T infrastructure with backing from Celgene which could be valuable if managed correctly," he said. Not all analysts agree with Leone's poor assessment of Juno: Leerink analyst Michael Schmidt said on Wednesday that "we think the JUNO weakness on competitive fears is unwarranted and believe JUNO's JCAR017 product looks very competitive to both NVS' and KITE's data... when compared apples to apples." More time is needed to compare the products, he said, with Juno on track to start a pivotal study in the second half of this year. After several patients in a clinical trial for Juno's JCAR015 drug died last year, the company later announced it would discontinue the drug's development. Juno and other companies are developing a similar type of cancer treatment, but rivals have garnered more positive results. Recent clinical trial results from rival Bluebird Bio prompted a J.P. Morgan analyst to christen the company "the clear winner" at a major cancer conference this past weekend. Juno shares have risen 8.7% over the last three months, compared with a 3% rise in the S&P 500 .

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