Ligand subsidiaries, Chromocell Therapeutics to merge
Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst
Updated: Apr 17 2025
0mins
Merger Announcement: Ligand Pharmaceuticals and Channel Therapeutics have signed a definitive merger agreement to combine their subsidiaries, with the new entity operating as Pelthos Therapeutics Inc. and trading under the ticker "PTHS" on the NYSE American exchange.
Investment and Leadership: The merger will be supported by $50M in capital from strategic investors, with Ligand investing $18M. Upon completion, Plesha will serve as CEO and Knuettel as CFO of the combined company, expected to close in summer 2025.
Analyst Views on LGND
Wall Street analysts forecast LGND stock price to rise over the next 12 months. According to Wall Street analysts, the average 1-year price target for LGND is 243.50 USD with a low forecast of 220.00 USD and a high forecast of 275.00 USD. However, analyst price targets are subjective and often lag stock prices, so investors should focus on the objective reasons behind analyst rating changes, which better reflect the company's fundamentals.
7 Analyst Rating
7 Buy
0 Hold
0 Sell
Strong Buy
Current: 203.820
Low
220.00
Averages
243.50
High
275.00
Current: 203.820
Low
220.00
Averages
243.50
High
275.00
About LGND
Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated is a biopharmaceutical company enabling scientific advancement through supporting the clinical development of medicines. It does this by financing, licensing its technologies or both. It operates two infrastructure-light royalty-generating IP platform technologies. Its Captisol platform technology is a chemically modified cyclodextrin with a structure designed to optimize the solubility and stability of drugs. This technology has enabled FDA-approved products, including Gilead’s Veklury, Amgen’s Kyprolis, Baxter’s Nexterone, and Acrotech Biopharma’s Evomela. Its NITRICIL platform technology facilitates tunable dosing, permitting an adjustable drug release profile to allow proprietary formulations that target a range of indications. Its technologies also include HepDirect, LTP and BEPro Technology Platform, and Pelican Expression Technology. It has multiple alliances, licenses and other business relationships with various pharmaceutical companies.
About the author
Emily J. Thompson
Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.
