INO Stock Price: Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. crashes after sharp analyst downgrade

NASDAQ:INO investors have been taken for quite the ride over the past two weeks with shares peaking at $18.50 while also bottoming out in the single digits. The catalyst for the recent spike was a presentation that the pharmaceutical company released for investors about the potential of its new coronavirus vaccine candidate INO-4800. While the promotional video seemed to strike the right note with investors, Wall Street analysts remained skeptical. Shares are still up over 650% over the past 52-weeks but investors have to wonder if the stock has gained as much as it will for the time being.

Roth Capital analyst Jonathan Aschoff did not mix his words when he gave a severe downgrade of $11 to Inovio’s price target and doubled down on his sell rating for the biotech firm. Aschoff affirms that INO-4800 has “virtually no chance” of winning the Operation Warp Speed race and had just as little optimism for Inovio’s HPV cancer treatment, VGX-3100, as well. After Aschoff’s downgrade, shares tumbled showing just how much power these analysts have over the price of company stocks. 

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Whether or not Aschoff’s claims are warranted it seems as though investors are buying into the analyst’s downgrade. The more damning thing about INO-4800 could be that the vaccine candidate is still in Phase 1 of its clinical trials whereas vaccine candidates from other companies like AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN), Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) are all in at least Phase 3 of their respective trials. This means that the timeline for an actual vaccine may still more than a year off as rival firms bring their vaccines to market.