Down 13.69%: Is Sage Therapeutics Stock a Bad-News Buy?
Shares of Sage Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SAGE), a clinical-stage biotech, dropped by 13.69% today, after the company reported that its experimental treatment for super-refractory status epilepticus (SRSE) missed its primary endpoint in a late-stage study. Super-refractory epilepticus is a life-threatening condition defined by severe seizures that continue, or reoccur, 24 hours after anesthetic therapy. Sage's experimental SRSE drug candidate, brexanolone (SAGE-547), was reportedly unable to outperform placebo in terms of reducing the rate of seizures when added to standard of care.
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As an FDA-approved treatment for SRSE, brexanolone was projected to generate somewhere between $33 million and $98 million in sales for Sage in 2018. Equally as important, though, the drug's lead indication was supposed to usher the company into the commercial-stage of its life cycle, thereby lowering its future cash-burn rate. With this pivotal stage miss, however, Sage and its shareholders will now have to pin their hopes on the drug's late-stage postpartum depression data that's due out later this year.
Source: Fool.com