Puma in­vestors fret, as Ner­l­ynx Q1 sales fall un­com­fort­ably short of Wall Street es­ti­mates

“We are not pleased with our first-quar­ter Ner­l­ynx rev­enues,” Puma Biotech­nol­o­gy chief Alan Auer­bach said in a post-earn­ings con­fer­ence call on Thurs­day, cit­ing a spate of dis­con­cert­ing fac­tors, in­clud­ing pa­tient dis­con­tin­u­a­tions. In­vestors con­curred with his as­sess­ment, as the stock $PBYI cratered. The dis­dain con­tin­ued ear­ly Fri­day, as shares fell near­ly 37% to $18.96 be­fore the bell.

The drug, which was in-li­censed by Puma from Pfiz­er $PFE, was ap­proved by the FDA in Ju­ly 2017, to pre­vent breast can­cer re­lapse, fol­low­ing ther­a­py in pa­tients with HER2-pos­i­tive can­cer. The treat­ment is known to have a poor tol­er­a­bil­i­ty pro­file, pre­dom­i­nant­ly re­lat­ing to di­ar­rhea. The Los An­ge­les-based com­pa­ny post­ed Q1 Ner­l­ynx sales of $45.6 mil­lion — a 25% de­cline quar­ter-over-quar­ter — and well be­low Street con­sen­sus ex­pec­ta­tions of about $67 mil­lion.

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