Baird has initiated coverage of Caris Life Sciences Inc (NASDAQ: CAI) with an outperform rating and established a $26.00 price target, which the firm says equates to about a 26% upside from the prevailing share price of $20.62. Market data referenced in the note show the stock trading only about 1% above its 52-week low of $20.42, after falling more than 43% over the last six months.
Caris Life Sciences is a commercial-stage precision oncology company that aims to enhance patient outcomes through extensive molecular information coupled with artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. The company generates the bulk of its revenue from its therapy selection service.
Its primary diagnostic offerings are MI Profile, a tissue-based profiling test, and Caris Assure, a blood-based profiling product. Both tests operate on Caris’s proprietary whole-exome sequencing and whole-transcriptome sequencing, or WES/WTS, solution.
In its initiation, Baird expressed caution specifically around the company’s pipeline related to multi-cancer early detection, or MCED, and minimal residual disease, or MRD, offerings, as well as around consensus Street FY26 estimates. Nonetheless, Baird characterized the recent sell-off in the shares as creating an attractive entry point and set its $26.00 valuation as the basis for the target following coverage launch.
Separately, Caris announced preliminary fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results that exceeded both analyst estimates and the FactSet consensus. The company reported about a 5% outperformance relative to expectations, a margin noted to hold even when excluding revenue attributable to prior-period true-ups. Clinical case volumes for both the MI Profile tissue-based therapy selection product and the Caris Assure blood-based therapy selection product also topped analyst projections.
Following those preliminary results, Canaccord Genuity reiterated a Hold rating on Caris Life Sciences and kept its $30.00 price target unchanged. Together, the analyst initiation from Baird and the company’s recent operational updates provide fresh data points for investors weighing exposure to the company, which sits at the intersection of diagnostics, oncology, and biopharma services.
Sector impact note: The developments touch health care sectors focused on diagnostics and precision medicine and have implications for capital markets coverage of clinical-stage and commercial-stage biotech and diagnostics companies.