UTHR Analysts Lift Targets as Shorts Hold and Earnings Near

United Therapeutics enters its October 28 earnings report with a striking split: analysts are raising targets with fresh conviction while short sellers, having made their big move last week, are now sitting still.

The analyst picture has shifted visibly in recent days. Leerink Partners lifted its target to $725 on October 19, maintaining an Outperform rating. That follows RBC Capital raising to $708 on October 8 and a BTIG upgrade to Buy with a $728 target on October 1. The direction of travel is clearly upward among the bulls, with a consensus mean target of $657 implying roughly 23% upside to the current price of $533. The outlier is Goldman Sachs, which initiated coverage on September 24 with a Sell rating and a $321 target, a level roughly 40% below where the stock trades. Morgan Stanley sits between the camps at Equal-Weight with a $566 target. The Goldman initiation, from bellwether analyst Andrea Newkirk, is the single most bearish data point on the Street, and it stands in sharp contrast to the cluster of Outperform ratings being lifted into earnings. Bulls point to United Therapeutics' dominant position in the prostacyclin pathway for pulmonary arterial hypertension and the potential for Tyvaso in new indications including IPF. Bears, per the Goldman view, argue that Tyvaso's antifibrotic activity versus pulmonary vascular disease remains unclear, and that competition in a broader IPF role limits the upside case.

Short positioning stabilised this week after last week's sharp build. As reported in the prior note, shares short jumped roughly 34% in seven days to around 8.5% of the free float, the bulk of that move arriving in a single session around October 7 to 8. This week the level has barely budged: estimated shares short on October 16 stand at 3.64 million, versus 3.66 million on October 13, essentially unchanged. The big repositioning is already in place. Borrow conditions remain relaxed, with availability at nearly 2,920%, meaning approximately 29 shares are available to lend for every one currently borrowed. Cost to borrow has actually eased, falling 18% on the week to 0.34%, one of the lowest readings of the past month. There is no squeeze pressure in the lending market. The ORTEX short score has settled near 50, holding the neutral territory it reached last week after jumping from the low 40s. Options positioning reinforces the picture: the put/call ratio at 0.81 is modestly below its 20-day average of 0.88, a slight lean toward calls, roughly one standard deviation in the more bullish direction.

Factor scores add texture to the valuation debate. EPS momentum over the past 30 days ranks in the 94th percentile across the universe, a strong signal that estimate revisions have been moving sharply upward heading into the print. The 90-day EPS momentum rank is a solid 74. The short score rank sits at 38, below the median, consistent with a stock where short interest is present but not extreme by the standards of the broader universe. The trailing PE multiple is 16x, and EV/EBITDA is running at 10.6x, both of which have contracted slightly over the week though expanded over the past month.

Medicaid data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services offers a note of caution on the commercial side. Medicaid prescriptions for United Therapeutics' products have fallen for three consecutive quarters, with the latest reading covering Q1 2026 at 5,208 prescriptions. Medicaid dollars reimbursed in the same quarter were down 11% against Q1 last year, at $75.7 million. None of the alt-data datasets available for this company has been measured to lead its reported figures, so these readings are context rather than a forward signal. But the direction of the Medicaid trend is worth noting alongside a bull case that rests heavily on volume growth.

Insider activity from October 15 is routine rather than alarming. EVP and General Counsel Paul Mahon executed a series of sales totalling roughly $3.5 million under a pre-arranged 10b5-1 plan, alongside an option exercise. CEO Martine Rothblatt also sold approximately $2.1 million worth of shares under a plan. Both sets of trades were plan-driven and carry limited informational weight. Net insider selling over the past 90 days stands at approximately $23.8 million across 43,672 shares, consistent with ongoing planned disposals rather than a shift in sentiment. Rothblatt continues to hold a 1.56% stake directly, the latest disclosed figure as of October 15.

With nine days to the October 28 report, the key question is whether the EPS momentum that has driven aggressive estimate upgrades translates into a beat, and whether management's commentary on Tyvaso's IPF trajectory is enough to address Goldman's structural concern about the product's mechanism.