Needham & Company LLC reissued their buy rating on shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ICPT) in a research report report published on Wednesday morning, Analyst Ratings Net reports. They currently have a $500.00 target price on the biopharmaceutical company’s stock.

Several other brokerages have also commented on ICPT. Bank of America lowered Intercept Pharmaceuticals from a neutral rating to an underperform rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $268.00 to $157.00 in a report on Wednesday, October 28th. Wedbush reissued a buy rating on shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals in a report on Thursday, November 19th. FBR & Co. dropped their price objective on Intercept Pharmaceuticals from $273.00 to $192.00 and set a market perform rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, November 11th. JMP Securities dropped their price objective on Intercept Pharmaceuticals to $348.00 and set a market outperform rating on the stock in a report on Friday, December 18th. Finally, Cowen and Company reissued a buy rating on shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals in a report on Wednesday, November 18th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. The stock currently has a consensus rating of Buy and an average target price of $324.39.

In other news, insider Lisa Bright sold 728 shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $125.52, for a total value of $91,378.56. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 11,700 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,468,584. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, Director Klaus R. Dr Veitinger sold 1,000 shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $198.25, for a total value of $198,250.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 2,166 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $429,409.50. The disclosure for this sale can be found here.

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. CenturyLink Investment Management Co boosted its stake in shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals by 94.6% in the fourth quarter. CenturyLink Investment Management Co now owns 2,092 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $312,000 after buying an additional 1,017 shares during the last quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale boosted its stake in shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 12,310 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $1,847,000 after buying an additional 200 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Russell Frank Co boosted its stake in shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals by 4.2% in the fourth quarter. Russell Frank Co now owns 3,663 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $550,000 after buying an additional 147 shares during the last quarter.

Intercept Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ICPT) traded down 9.86% during trading on Wednesday, hitting $99.32. The stock had a trading volume of 892,047 shares. The company’s 50 day moving average is $139.64 and its 200-day moving average is $183.70. Intercept Pharmaceuticals has a 12 month low of $99.03 and a 12 month high of $314.88. The company’s market cap is $2.42 billion.

Intercept Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ICPT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, November 9th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($2.10) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($2.74) by $0.64. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted ($1.69) earnings per share. The business earned $0.45 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $0.42 million. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up .0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts predict that Intercept Pharmaceuticals will post ($9.15) earnings per share for the current year.

Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company. The Company is focused on the development and commercialization of therapeutics to treat chronic liver diseases utilizing its bile acid chemistry. The Company’s product candidate, obeticholic acid (NASDAQ:ICPT), is a bile acid analog, a chemical substance that has a structure based on a naturally occurring human bile acid that selectively binds to and activates the farnesoid X receptor (FXR). The Company is also developing other products INT-767 and INT-777 for the treatment of fibrosis and type 2 diabetes. OCA has been tested in five placebo-controlled clinical trials, including a completed Phase III clinical trial in patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) and two Phase II clinical trials in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). OCA met the primary efficacy endpoint in each of these trials with statistical significance.

12 Month Chart for NASDAQ:ICPT

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