February 11, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Cambridge, Mass.-based Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that it was laying off approximately 25 percent of its staffers worldwide, or about 75 people.
Although the company indicated last year that in the second quarter 2015 its sales of Juxtapid had risen 59 percent to $57.1 million, the drug faces new competition from several other companies. Juxtapid is used to treat homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH), which is high cholesterol caused by a rare genetic mutation. It has a price tag of $295,000 annually.
While the second quarter was good, in last year’s third quarter, sales were essentially stagnant, growing from $57.1 million in the second quarter to $58.8 million. At the company’s third-quarter financials conference calls, Aegerion indicated that 59 percent of patients had stopped using the drug, which the company said was “a result of (gastro-intestinal) tolerability, diet, or other issues.”
However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ’s Praluent for cholesterol for the same indication, only with a price tag of $14,600. In addition, in August 2015 the FDA approved Amgen ’s Repatha injection for difficult to control cholesterol. Its daily price tag is $40, or $14,600 per year.
After the cuts, Aegerion will have about 230 employees. The company has a market cap of $185 million.
The cuts are projected to be completed by the end of the first half of 2016. “One of Aegerion’s most important assets is its talented and dedicated team of employees, and this reduction in our workforce is a difficult but necessary step towards strengthening the Company financially,” said Mary Szela, Aegerion’s chief executive officer, in a statement. “We believe this action better aligns the Company’s resources with our current strategy and market opportunity for Juxtapid and our goal of continuing to grow Myalept (metreleptin for injection) sales, supports our objective to create a pipeline of therapies to treat patients with rare diseases, and positions us to maximize the value of our assets for our shareholders.”
Yesterday the company also announced that on Feb. 1, 2016, the company granted stock options to purchase an aggregate of 18,270 shares of common stock to six new employees. Each option had an exercise price per share worth $7.36, which was the stock’s closing price on the date it was granted. This was an Inducement Award Stock Option Plan, which, according to the company, “is used exclusively for the grant of non-qualified stock options to individuals who were not previously an employee or non-employee director of Aegerion (or following a bona fide period of non-employment), as an inducement new stock option award material to an individual’s entry into employment.”
Aegerion has been on a very steady decline for the last year. Shares traded on Mar. 5, 2015, for $28.32, dropped to $19.47 on May 18, and to $16.36 on Nov. 6. Shortly afterward shares plunged to $9.29 on Nov. 12. They are currently trading for $6.40 per share.
Six analyst firms polled by Zacks Research, however, gave the company’s stock a short-term aggregate price target of $18.66. The highest was about $31, with the lowest being $13.
