Durect price target raised to $44 from $37 at Cantor Fitzgerald

Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Kristen Kluska raised the firm’s price target on Durect to $44 from $37 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares after the Q4 report. Following a "quiet" 2022, Durect’s 2023 will be driven by data readouts anticipated for the back half of the year from the potentially pivotal Phase 2b AHFIRM trial of larsucosterol in alcohol-associated hepatitis, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The weakness in the share price last year was driven by a lack of clinical catalysts, but the narrative will begin to change now as we get closer to this readout, contends the firm.