Verve Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERV) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's forecasts. The consensus statutory numbers for both revenue and earnings per share (EPS) increased, with their view clearly much more bullish on the company's business prospects. Investor sentiment seems to be improving too, with the share price up 6.4% to US$4.63 over the past 7 days. It will be interesting to see if this latest upgrade is enough to kickstart further buying interest in the stock.

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Following the upgrade, the consensus from ten analysts covering Verve Therapeutics is for revenues of US$39m in 2025, implying a concerning 34% decline in sales compared to the last 12 months. Losses are expected to increase substantially, hitting US$2.40 per share. Yet prior to the latest estimates, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$24m and losses of US$2.67 per share in 2025. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, with the analysts making a sizeable increase to their revenue forecasts while also reducing the estimated loss as the business grows towards breakeven.

Check out our latest analysis for Verve Therapeutics

Despite these upgrades, the analysts have not made any major changes to their price target of US$24.33, implying that their latest estimates don't have a long term impact on what they think the stock is worth.

One way to get more context on these forecasts is to look at how they compare to both past performance, and how other companies in the same industry are performing. These estimates imply that sales are expected to slow, with a forecast annualised revenue decline of 42% by the end of 2025. This indicates a significant reduction from annual growth of 109% over the last three years. Compare this with our data, which suggests that other companies in the same industry are, in aggregate, expected to see their revenue grow 17% per year. So although its revenues are forecast to shrink, this cloud does not come with a silver lining - Verve Therapeutics is expected to lag the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The highlight for us was that the consensus reduced its estimated losses this year, perhaps suggesting Verve Therapeutics is moving incrementally towards profitability. Fortunately, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, and are forecasting revenues to grow slower than the wider market. The lack of change in the price target is puzzling, but with a serious upgrade to this year's earnings expectations, it might be time to take another look at Verve Therapeutics.