Here's Why Everybody's Talking About Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Stock
Shares of Aurinia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AUPH) recently jumped thanks to excitement about the company's new lupus treatment. The Food and Drug Administration recently made voclosporin (brand name Lupkynis) the company's first commercial-stage product.
Analysts who follow Aurinia Pharmaceuticals have raised their sales estimates for Lupkynis following its approval. General attention for the stock has gone through the roof. Here's why.
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Lupkynis is an improvement on cyclosporine, a decades-old immunosuppressive drug used to reduce the risk of post-transplant organ rejection, and the active ingredient in a popular dry eye treatment called Restasis. Voclosporin is supposed to be an improvement on the old standard because it swaps out one of 11 amino acids that comprise cyclosporine. Producing evidence of an improvement was more challenging than the company had originally hoped.
Aurinia Pharmaceuticals had already been testing voclosporin as a potential lupus treatment, but switched gears a few years ago to focus on a new formulation of voclosporin for the treatment of dry eye syndrome, which turned out to be a total disaster.
In theory, voclosporin requires a lower dosage than cyclosporine to do the same job, which should make it easier to tolerate. That line of reasoning fell apart when results from a head-to-head study against Restasis didn't show an improvement as regards tolerability in 2019. Last November, Aurinia Pharmaceuticals had to tell investors that voclosporin failed to outperform a placebo as a potential treatment for dry eye.
Source Fool.com
