Why Shares of Ocular Therapeutix Jumped This Week
Shares of Ocular Therapeutix (NASDAQ: OCUL) were up by 49.6% for the week as of Thursday's market close, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The biopharmaceutical company specializes in finding therapies to treat diseases and conditions of the eye. The stock closed last week at $3.87 a share but rose to as high as $6.49 on Wednesday.
The healthcare company, on Feb. 11, announced preliminary 10-month data on its phase 1 trial of OTX-TKI, an axitinib (a small molecule, multitarget, tyrosine kinase inhibitor) intravitreal (inside the eye) hydrogel implant to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy and other diseases of the retina. The small trial, with 21 subjects, showed the therapy to be well tolerated with no notable serious adverse effects.
Though the study is in the early stages, the jump was warranted because macular degeneration affects a large sector of the population. According to the Bright Focus Foundation, macular degeneration affects nearly 20 million adults in the U.S., is a leading cause of vision loss in Americans 60 and older, and a leading cause of irreversible blindness and visual impairment globally. The strong showing for the therapy also buoys the company's hope that it could treat a variety of vascular retinal diseases, including diabetic retinopathy.
Source Fool.com
