Key Takeaways
- Arcutis shares rose 12% after Guggenheim raised its price target to $44 from $38 and kept its Buy rating, citing “growing conviction” about 2027.
- It’s the second bullish call in a week, after Cantor Fitzgerald started coverage on Thursday with an Overweight rating and a $48 target.
- Consensus expects revenue to climb from $376 million in 2025 to $687 million in 2027, though growth slows from 91% to about 28%.
- Management expects operating leverage to expand in 2027 as this year’s sales spending eases, and the next things to watch are a vitiligo trial readout and third-quarter results.
Arcutis Biotherapeutics (ARQT) is up 12% today after Guggenheim raised its price target to $44 from $38 this morning and kept its Buy rating.
The reason? Guggenheim analyst Seamus Fernandez cited “growing conviction” about what 2027 holds for the company.
It’s the second bullish call in a week. On Thursday, Cantor Fitzgerald’s Steve Seedhouse started coverage at Overweight with a $48 target. He pointed to $3.5 billion in potential peak sales for Zoryve, Arcutis’s eczema and psoriasis franchise.
Even after today’s pop, Guggenheim’s $44 sits more than a third above the share price.
Zoryve is already delivering
Arcutis’s revenue nearly doubled to $376 million in 2025, and analysts expect it to reach $687 million by 2027…
And the second quarter ran ahead of that pace: $129.9 million, up 59% from a year earlier and about $11 million more than analysts expected.
Growth is slowing, though. Consensus has it at about 43% this year and 28% in 2027, down from 91% last year.
2027 is when the spending pays off
Arcutis is spending heavily in 2026 to keep Zoryve growing. It has finished expanding its dermatology sales force, and it launched a primary care and pediatric sales team in late August.
On its first-quarter call, management said that without those investments, operating leverage would already be expanding this year. Instead, it pointed to that expansion in 2027 and beyond, once the need for new spending moderates.
Arcutis already earned $0.11 a share in the second quarter, more than double the $0.05 analysts expected.
Nearly all of this rides on one drug, though, and Zoryve’s growth is slowing even as Arcutis spends more to sell it.
My take: The sales forecasts already ask a lot of Zoryve. But if spending eases the way management expects, 2027 is the year Arcutis turns into a real earnings story, and I think Guggenheim is right to get more excited about it.
Of course, the next tests come quickly: a Phase 2 readout in vitiligo due this quarter, then Arcutis’s third-quarter report.
So what is Arcutis stock actually worth?
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Disclaimer:
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