La Jol­la shares whacked as an­a­lysts spot­light dis­ap­point­ing PhI­II fine print

Last Feb­ru­ary, shares of La Jol­la Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal $LJPC rock­et­ed up on the news that its lead drug hit its pri­ma­ry end­point in Phase III. At the crack of dawn Mon­day morn­ing, though, the stock slid down 13% af­ter in­vestors and an­a­lysts ex­am­ined the fine print and pon­dered the drug’s com­mer­cial prospects.

As we al­ready knew, 70% of the pa­tients with cat­e­cholamine re­sis­tant hy­poten­sion tak­ing LJPC-501 re­spond­ed with a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in mean ar­te­r­i­al pres­sure, com­pared to 23% in the place­bo arm. An­oth­er pos­i­tive: There was a sig­nif­i­cant drop in the use of cat­e­cholamine, which is as­so­ci­at­ed with se­ri­ous side ef­fects.

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