Tag Archives: biotech

Sucampo Q4 Beats Estimates, Affirms Guidance, Driving Up Stock

Sucampo Pharmaceuticals ( SCMP ) popped to a two-month high Tuesday after its Q4 earnings beat estimates. Sucampo said it made 43 cents a share in the quarter, excluding one-time items, up 108% from the year-earlier quarter. That beat analysts’ consensus of 19 cents, according to Thomson Reuters. On a GAAP basis, Sucampo made 23 cents a share. Sales climbed 47% to $55.4 million, about $13 million above consensus. For the full year, Sucampo made 95 cents a share, up 136% from 2014, while revenue rose 33% to $153.2 million. For the current year, the company affirmed its previous guidance of 97 cents to $1.07 in EPS on sales of $195 million to $205 million. Sucampo stock jumped almost 15% in early trading to 16, its highest point since Jan. 5, but closed up just 4.3% at 14.54. The company’s lead drug Amitiza provided most of the revenue, with prescriptions growing 10% over Q4 2014 to 390,228. Sucampo’s income derives from royalties paid by its partners, Takeda in the U.S. and Mylan ( MYL ) in Japan; Sucampo also took a $5 million milestone payment from Mylan in the quarter as part of their partnership. The Q4 results included the acquisition of R-Tech Ueno in December, which gave Sucampo a greater share in Amitiza’s global economics as well as some pipeline products. “The key revenue driver, Amitiza, is doing better than we expected outside the U.S., and even in the U.S. sales remained strong as the end-market sales reported by Takeda for royalty calculation were $102.3 million vs. our estimate of $98.2 million,” wrote UBS analyst Ami Fadia in a research note. “4Q 2015 was the first reported quarter that included the R-Tech deal and we are starting to see the improvement in earnings we were expecting from this deal.” Guggenheim analyst Louise Chen lowered her 2016 earnings estimate slightly due to the guidance, but said several factors could provide upside this year: M&A, data readouts on some pipeline products this year, and new formulations and indications for Amitiza, which is currently used for constipation. She estimated that Sucampo has the financial capacity to make a buyout in the $400 million to $500 million range.  

AbbVie Bolsters Immunology Business, Acquires Boehringer Drug

Big pharma AbbVie ( ABBV ) said Monday that it was acquiring rights to two immunology drugs developed by German counterpart Boehringer Ingelheim, but its stock was flat as Goldman Sachs warned of increasing competition. AbbVie agreed to pay $595 million upfront plus undisclosed milestone payments and royalties for the right to commercialize BI 655066, a drug in late-stage testing for psoriasis, and in earlier testing for Crohn’s disease, psoriatic arthritis and asthma. A phase-two trial comparing BI 655066 head to head with Johnson & Johnson ’s ( JNJ ) Remicade found that after nine months of treatment, 69% of patients on Boehringer’s drug had clear or almost clear skin, compared with 30% in the Remicade arm. AbbVie also acquired rights to BI 655064, an earlier-stage drug that attacks the CD40 protein, which may be connected to lupus nephritis, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. AbbVie said in its press release that it will decide whether to go forward with that drug “after completion of certain undisclosed clinical achievements.” AbbVie said that its success in developing and commercializing Humira, currently the world’s top-selling immunology drug, gives it the expertise to do the same with Boehringer’s products. Humira is nearing the end of its patent life, leading to much speculation on Wall Street about when biosimilar competitors might launch and how much of an impact they might have. Goldman Sachs analyst Salveen Richter took a pessimistic view of the matter Monday, saying that the current political focus on lowering drug prices will probably encourage cheap Humira knock-offs. “We are not changing our 2016-2020 AbbVie forecasts and continue to believe that Humira will remain a durable asset free of U.S. biosimilars, at least until the end of the decade,” Richter wrote as he removed AbbVie stock from his Conviction Buy list and cut his price target to 68 from 80.  “However, we adjust our terminal value growth rate (from +1% to 0%) and model a faster decline curve post introduction of Humira biosimilars in the U.S. after 2020 through 2025.” AbbVie stock fell as much as 2.4% in early trading on the stock market today , but by midday it was flat, near 56. Meanwhile, Richter put BioMarin Pharmaceuticals ( BMRN ) on his Conviction Buy list in AbbVie’s place, setting his price target at 129. BioMarin, Richter noted, has guided that it will go into the black next year even without a contribution of its recently FDA-rejected muscular-dystrophy drug Kyndrisa, “showing opex restraint and a commitment to profitability.” He added that several data releases this year could bring upside for medications including BioMarin’s gene therapy for hemophilia and treatments for the rare diseases achondroplasia and phenylketonuria. BioMarin stock was up 2.5% midday Monday, near 89. Image provided by Shutterstock .

Bluebird Bio Up As Gene Therapy Scores Against Rare Disease

Biotech Bluebird Bio ( BLUE ) stock rose Friday after the company released positive data on its gene-therapy treatment for a rare disease. Late Thursday, a number of abstracts were released for presentations at next month’s meeting of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). Bluebird highlighted its Starbeam study, which treated 17 boys with cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy, a rare genetic disease that leads to a breakdown of the nervous system. Bluebird used Lenti-D, which modifies the patient’s own stem cells to correct the gene mutation and re-implants them. Bluebird said that six months after treatment, subjects showed no worsening in neurological function and were expressing the protein needed to prevent the neurodegeneration. The company said that one serious adverse event possibly related to the drug had occurred, as a patient was infected with the BK virus, which is associated with transplants. However, Bluebird said the case had been resolved. Lenti-D is one treatment Bluebird is developing using its lentivirus platform for delivering gene therapy to patients. The better-known treatment LentiGlobin is being studied as a treatment for severe anemia, and it has driven the stock up and down over the last year as early trial results have trickled in. “While Lenti-D represents only a very modest commercial opportunity, we believe positive interim data at AAN should provide investors with more comfort that Bluebird’s technology can be applied effectively and consistently as a potential curative approach for severe genetic diseases,” Leerink analyst Michael Schmidt wrote in a research note. Bluebird will report full results at the AAN meeting in Vancouver on April 20. Bluebird stock was up 6.5% in midday trading on the stock market today , near 57. The stock is still more than 70% off last May’s record high above 197.