La Jol­la feels the burn of ri­val malar­ia ap­proval; With an­oth­er $10B, Bay­er could fi­nal­ly weed out its her­bi­cide prob­lem

→ La Jol­la Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal‘s shares $LJPC tum­bled about 20% to $5.48 on Wednes­day morn­ing af­ter an­oth­er com­pa­ny — Mary­land-based Ami­vas — was grant­ed FDA ap­proval for an IV for­mu­la­tion of an arte­sunate prod­uct for malar­ia. Arte­sunate is the ac­tive in­gre­di­ent used in La Jol­la’s lead ex­per­i­men­tal prod­uct, LJPC-0118, which is be­ing de­vel­oped for use in se­vere malar­ia. The Ami­vas news comes as a big blow to La Jol­la’s prospects as FDA reg­u­la­tions state that the agency will not ap­prove an­oth­er spon­sor’s mar­ket­ing ap­pli­ca­tion for the same drug for the same use or in­di­ca­tion with­in 7 years of the ini­tial ap­proval.

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