September 29, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
The Boston area has been one of the fastest growing areas for the pharmaceutical industry. But while the area is booming with innovation and new companies setting up shop, there are some tragedies as well. The Boston Business Journal lays out 10 biotech companies that have seen dramatic decline in their market value over the past few months due to clinical trial failures or other reasons.
Since January, the company has seen a steady in its stock prices. In early January, the company’s stock more than doubled, jumping from $22.47 per share to $49.76 per share after Roche bought a $1.03 billion majority stake in the company. However, since then the stock has steadily decreased in price to $17.94 per share.
2. OvaScience
OvaScience’s hit a peak high of $53.46 per share on March 24, but since then the stock has shown a lot of movement, but mostly in decline. In August, OvaScience published a study of its Augment fertility treatment, which compared it to standard in vitro-fertilization. According to the study, OvaScience’s treatment proved more beneficial than IVF treatments. One reason for the stock decrease is related to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) telling the company that its treatment technology should be regulated like a drug, as opposed to a biological process. The biological process approval has a lower bar to overcome.
The company has seen a dramatic decline in its . CoLucid, which is developing lasmiditan, for the acute treatment of migraine headaches, is currently trading at $6.56 per share, up from its Monday closing price of $4.36 per share. In May, the stock hit a 52-week high of $9.46 per share after announcing its initial public offering at $10 per share.
InVivo Therapeutics stock has had a bit of a roller coaster ride this past year. In April, the hit a 52-week high of $19.68 per share, before crashing to a low of $1.96 per share in August. The stock has rallied back to its current price of $9.06 per share. Stock prices for the company have been impacted, at least in part, by two clinical trial members sharing their progress and setbacks on social media.
5. Agenus
In June hit a high of $9.78 per share, but since then the stock has seen a steady decline to its current price of $4.56 per share. Earlier this month the company mortgaged revenue from some of its vaccines in exchange for $115 million in funding to advance its immuno-oncology programs.
6. Pulmatrix
In June, the company hit a 2015 high of $12.65 per share, but the has continued to slide since then, losing more than 50 percent of its market value. Pulmatrix stock is currently trading at $4.91 per share. The company is developing PUR1900, an inhaled anti-infective to treat fungal infections associated with cystic fibrosis.
The company has about 70 percent of its value in the past year after cancer patients in clinical trials developed sepsis. The stock is currently trading at $10.97 per share.
In March, Celldex Therapeutics was at $31.78 per share, but since then the stock has lost more than half of its value, currently trading at $10.43 per share. In June, the company announced its brain cancer drug was helping patients live longer.
9. Verastem
Verastem has lost more than 70 percent of its market value in the past 60 days. In March, the stock hit a high of $12.10 per share. However, this month, the stock dropped from $5.67 per share to its current price of $1.82 per share after the company halted its Phase II cancer study due to insufficient efficacy.
10. TetraPhase
Tetraphase has seen the biggest stock decline of all. Company value has more than 80 percent in the past two months. On Sept. 8, the stock was trading at $44.78 per share, but plummeted to its current price of $7.93 per share after the company announced a failure of its Phase III antibiotic eravacycline. Following the Sept. 9 announcement of the trial’s failure, company stock plummeted approximately 80 percent, crashing from its Sept. 8 closing price of $44.78 per share to $9.59 per share in afterhours trading. The drop eliminated $1.3 billion in Tetraphase’s market value.
