Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Alnylam, Roche, Phase Forward, Inc., Novo Nordisk and EnCana Corp.

Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Alnylam (NASDAQ: ALNY), Roche (OTC: RHHBY), Phase Forward, Inc. (NASDAQ: PFWD), Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) and EnCana Corp. (NYSE: ECA).

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Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

Alnylam Results Fall Short

Alnylam (NASDAQ: ALNY) relies on research collaborations, grants, and licensing of the RNAi technology outside its core focus area for its major revenue sources.

The company reported 4th quarter of 2008 financial results on February 24, 2009. Revenues in the quarter were $24.4 million, compared to $18.2 million for the same period last year. Revenues for the 4th quarter of 2008 included $14.0 million of net collaboration revenues related to the company’s alliance with Roche (OTC: RHHBY), as well as $5.4 million of revenues from the company’s alliance with Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company Limited.

Phase Forward Still Moving Ahead

We had earlier upgraded our recommendation of Phase Forward, Inc. (NASDAQ: PFWD) to a Buy on Nov. 26, 2008, anticipating strong Q4 results and contract extensions with top pharma companies. Q4 EPS came in a penny better than our $0.12 estimate on a proforma basis, and the company indicated that 4 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies signed multi-year, multi-million dollar extensions and expansions during the quarter. (Phase Forward mainly services the pharmaceutical industry and provides software and services to assist clients in improving the efficiency of their clinical trials.)

Further, we continue to expect certain large ASP customers to make a transition to enterprise license from ASP this year, similar to what Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) did in the last quarter. Based on the historical pattern of revenue recognized from the ending backlog and from new bookings, at the mid-point of company’s revenue guidance, we believe that the bookings for 2008 increased about 15% year over year. However, forward guidance came in below our and consensus expectations, prompting us to review our model and reduce our target price from $18 to $16.

EnCana a Buy Up to $54

EnCana Corp. (NYSE: ECA), based in Calgary, Alberta, is a major oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) company. The steep decline in commodity prices and weak refinery margins resulted in a 47% year-over-year fall in EnCana's 4th-quarter 2008 earnings.

However, production increased 4% year over year to 4.67 Bcfe/d. Importantly, the company replaced 150% of its volumes at a unit F&D cost of $2.90. EnCana remains in excellent financial health, having generated in excess of $2 billion in free cash flows in each of the last two years.

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