Shares in Amylyx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AMLX) were up almost 28% in the week to Friday morning. The move comes after an analyst at Guggenheim initiated coverage of the small-cap stock and issued a buy recommendation, accompanied by a price target of $17. For reference, the stock price at the time of writing is $6.50.
Why Wall Street is excited by Amylyx Pharmaceuticals
The main excitement surrounds avexitide, a GLP-1 receptor antagonist, which Amylyx is currently testing in a phase 3 trial for post-bariatric hypoglycemia (PBH). According to Amylyx, about 8% of patients who have undergone bariatric (weight loss) surgery end up with PBH; this translates to 160,000 people living with PBH now. The Guggenheim analyst believes avexitide has blockbuster potential (usually implying sales of over $1 billion), and investors are hoping Amylyx can replicate the results of its phase 2 trial.
Management anticipates that the phase 3 Lucidity trial will be completed in 2025, with headline results expected to be available in the first half of 2026.
What it means to investors
For reference, the two phase 2 trials tested 18 and 16 people with PBH, with the phase 2b trial cutting hypoglycemia events by more than 50%.
Image source: Getty Images.
While the phase 2 results are impressive, investors should always remember that phase 2 trials are not always replicated in phase 3 trials, and the 18- and 16-person sample size in the phase 2 trials is a lot smaller than the 75 set to take part in Lucidity.
That said, there's clearly upside potential here, and Amylyx might attract speculative investors with a tolerance for risk.
Should you invest $1,000 in Amylyx Pharmaceuticals right now?
Before you buy stock in Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Amylyx Pharmaceuticals wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $687,731!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $945,846!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 818% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 175% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.
See the 10 stocks »
*Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 2025
Lee Samaha has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.