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Investing.com - Leerink Partners has reiterated an Outperform rating and $70.00 price target on Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH), a $7.46 billion market cap company that has seen its stock surge over 110% year-to-date, following the company’s announcement of results for its Shield v2 colorectal cancer (CRC) screening assay. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains strong financial health despite not being profitable in the last twelve months.
The Shield v2 assay demonstrated 84% sensitivity at 90% specificity for colorectal cancer detection, compared to 83% sensitivity at the same specificity for the previous version. Stage I cancer detection improved to 62% sensitivity from 55% in the earlier version, while Stage II and IV detection remained at 100% sensitivity. This development comes as Guardant Health continues to show strong revenue growth of 28.7% year-over-year, with a healthy gross profit margin of 62.8%.
Leerink noted that while the overall improvement is incremental and possibly less than investor expectations, the enhanced Stage I performance represents a positive development that could help Guardant compete in the CRC screening market. The firm highlighted that privately-held Freenome, backed by Exact Sciences, plans to launch its liquid biopsy test next year.
The research firm expects Guardant Health to seek FDA approval for Shield v2, estimating a six-month approval timeline with launch following shortly thereafter. Leerink believes Shield v2 will receive the same reimbursement as the current version.
Guardant faces increasing competition in the colorectal cancer screening market, with Freenome’s liquid biopsy test showing 79% sensitivity for cancer detection and 13% for advanced adenomas at 92% specificity, with its second version expected to be presented at a scientific conference either later this year or in early 2025. With analyst consensus remaining bullish and price targets ranging from $47 to $70, investors can access comprehensive analysis and additional insights through InvestingPro’s detailed research reports, which offer deep-dive analysis of Guardant Health’s competitive position and growth prospects.
In other recent news, Guardant Health reported better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter of 2025. The company posted an earnings per share (EPS) of -$0.44, surpassing the anticipated -$0.72, and reported revenue of $232.1 million, exceeding expectations of $211.27 million. This strong financial performance led Guardant Health to raise its full-year revenue guidance to 24-25% growth year-over-year, up from the initial 15-16% projection. Following these results, Scotiabank raised its price target on Guardant Health to $60.00, maintaining a Sector Outperform rating.
Additionally, Guardant Health announced clinical validation results for its updated Shield blood test algorithm for colorectal cancer screening. The updated algorithm demonstrated 84% sensitivity for detecting colorectal cancer with 90% specificity. However, despite these developments, the Shield V2 algorithm update showed less improvement than anticipated, with sensitivity increasing to 84% from 83%, as noted by Raymond James, which maintained an Outperform rating and a $61.00 price target.
Evercore ISI also reiterated an Outperform rating with a $60.00 price target, despite version 2 results from Guardant’s ECLIPSE study showing no material improvement. The analyst highlighted that differences in the expanded cohort’s age distribution and cancer stages likely impacted the results.
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