Aclaris Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACRS) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to next year's forecasts. The revenue forecast for next year has experienced a facelift, with analysts now much more optimistic on its sales pipeline. The market may be pricing in some blue sky too, with the share price gaining 21% to US$2.63 in the last 7 days. It will be interesting to see if today's upgrade is enough to propel the stock even higher.

After the upgrade, the consensus from Aclaris Therapeutics' eight analysts is for revenues of US$11m in 2025, which would reflect a sizeable 59% decline in sales compared to the last year of performance. Losses are expected to increase slightly, to US$0.56 per share. Yet prior to the latest estimates, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$9.7m and losses of US$0.60 per share in 2025. We can see there's definitely been a change in sentiment in this update, with the analysts administering a sizeable upgrade to next year's revenue estimates, while at the same time reducing their loss estimates.

Check out our latest analysis for Aclaris Therapeutics

The consensus price target rose 48% to US$2.30, with the analysts encouraged by the higher revenue and lower forecast losses for next year.

Looking at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can make sense of these forecasts is to see how they measure up against both past performance and industry growth estimates. These estimates imply that sales are expected to slow, with a forecast annualised revenue decline of 51% by the end of 2025. This indicates a significant reduction from annual growth of 42% over the last five years. Compare this with our data, which suggests that other companies in the same industry are, in aggregate, expected to see their revenue grow 10% per year. It's pretty clear that Aclaris Therapeutics' revenues are expected to perform substantially worse than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing here is that analysts reduced their loss per share estimates for next year, reflecting increased optimism around Aclaris Therapeutics' prospects. Fortunately, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, and are forecasting revenues to grow slower than the wider market. There was also an increase in the price target, suggesting that there is more optimism baked into the forecasts than there was previously. Seeing the dramatic upgrade to next year's forecasts, it might be time to take another look at Aclaris Therapeutics.