Shares in Neurizon Therapeutics Ltd (ASX: NUZ) are down about 45% over the past 12 months, but according to the team at Morgans, there is potentially good upside in the stock.
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Key hire a positive sign
Morgans has just released a new research report on the company and reiterated its bullish share price target on the company, which I'll get to shortly.
The broker has revisited Neurizon because the company released three news announcements in quick succession earlier this month.
Arguably, the most impactful of these was the hiring of a new Chief Executive Officer, Dr Chris Bremer, who has more than 20 years' leadership experience spanning drug development, portfolio strategy, commercialisation, and business development.
Neurizon said that during his career, Dr Bremer had been involved in more than US$1 billion worth of licensing transactions.
The company said:
He has extensive experience guiding pharmaceutical assets from early development through to product launch and lifecycle management, as well as evaluating and executing licensing and strategic partnership transactions. His appointment comes as Neurizon advances NUZ-001 through Regimen I of the registrational Phase 2/3 HEALEY ALS Platform Trial and enters the important period leading up to topline results, expected in late Q2 CY2027. His combination of scientific, medical, commercial and transactional experience is particularly relevant as the Company prepares for the potential regulatory, development and strategic pathways that may follow and seeks to create long term shareholder value.
Neurizon's lead investigational therapy, NUZ-001, is being evaluated as a treatment for ALS in 250 participants.
The company said its priorities "include disciplined execution of the clinical program through to topline results, continued regulatory … readiness, further development of the scientific evidence supporting NUZ-001, and preparation for potential development, partnering and commercial pathways, subject to the outcomes of the study''.
Shares looking cheap according to Morgans
Morgans said they saw Dr Bremer's hiring as a signal that the company was looking to find development partners.
They said:
The company is unlikely to recruit a US$1bn-plus licensing operator two quarters from a registrational readout unless the Board is building toward that outcome as the preferred path. Dr Bremer has worked both sides of the licensing fence, inbound and outbound, so his skillset should be useful in structuring the dataroom, shaping the partnering process and negotiating economics if the topline result is positive.
Morgans has a price target on Neurizon of 20 cents per share compared to the current share price of 7.5 cents.
Their totally unrisked valuation is $1.50 per share, while should the clinical trial be a failure, the valuation drops to 1 to 2 cents.
Neurizon is valued at $59.4 million.
