Provention Bio, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRVB) just released its latest full-year results and things are looking bullish. Revenues of US$13m beat estimates by a substantial 39% margin. Unfortunately, Provention Bio also reported a statutory loss of US$1.52 per share, which at least was smaller than the analysts expected. Following the result, the analysts have updated their earnings model, and it would be good to know whether they think there's been a strong change in the company's prospects, or if it's business as usual. Readers will be glad to know we've aggregated the latest statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their mind on Provention Bio after the latest results.

See our latest analysis for Provention Bio

Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus from Provention Bio's five analysts is for revenues of US$46.6m in 2023, which would reflect a huge 261% increase on its sales over the past 12 months. Losses are forecast to balloon 59% to US$1.90 per share. Before this earnings announcement, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$56.8m and losses of US$1.84 per share in 2023. There's been a definite change in sentiment in this update, with the analysts administering a notable cut to next year's revenue estimates, while at the same time increasing their loss per share forecasts.

The average price target lifted 24% to US$24.00, clearly signalling that the weaker revenue and EPS outlook are not expected to weigh on the stock over the longer term. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. The most optimistic Provention Bio analyst has a price target of US$25.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$19.00. This is a very narrow spread of estimates, implying either that Provention Bio is an easy company to value, or - more likely - the analysts are relying heavily on some key assumptions.

Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. It's clear from the latest estimates that Provention Bio's rate of growth is expected to accelerate meaningfully, with the forecast 261% annualised revenue growth to the end of 2023 noticeably faster than its historical growth of 98% p.a. over the past five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to grow their revenue at 5.0% per year. It seems obvious that, while the growth outlook is brighter than the recent past, the analysts also expect Provention Bio to grow faster than the wider industry.