Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: PTLA) took a hit in Friday’s trading session. It gapped down to close at a loss of 40.34%. This followed news that the company may have violated federal security laws.
On the 9th of January 2020, the company announced that it was expecting $28 million in revenues from Andexxa in Q4 of 2019. This was significantly lower than the expected revenues of between $39 million and $41 million. The company attributed this discrepancy to cost-cutting at hospitals. It stated that, hospital pharmacies reduced the use of Andexxa after drug use reviews triggered by budgetary issues.
News of a possible violation of the law saw several law firms do press releases asking investors to join them in a class-action suit against the company for any losses suffered. The news also triggered significant call trading on the stock, and rating firms downgrading the firm. Immediately after the news, rating firm Oppenheimer downgraded the stock from outperform to perform and lowered its target from $40 to $17. Credit Suisse also lowered its target for the firm from $35 to $18. On top of that, call options rose to around 14,400 just about an hour to the close of the trading session.
While announcing its preliminary results for the year 2019, the company announced that net revenues of Andexxa in Q4 will be around $24 million compared to $33 million in Q3 of 2019. Nonetheless, it was much higher than its revenues for a similar period in 2018 when revenues stood at $14 million. The company also announced that in Q4, it created 90 new accounts, and a total of 425 new accounts in the year 2019.
Looking at its price action, the stock had a huge gap down, and opened Friday’s session at $14.57. It then traded between a high of $15.20 and a low of $13.50 before closing the day at $14.76. Volumes in the day stood at 19.9 million.
About Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc
Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc is a biopharma company that develops new treatments for thrombosis among other hematologic disorders. It is based in San Francisco, California.
