Pain Therapeutics Shares Plunged: What You Need to Know (PTIE)

Pain Therapeutics Shares Plunged: What You Need to Know

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Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of drug developer Pain Therapeutics (Nasdaq: PTIE ) continued their downward slide, losing as much as 38% in intraday trading today after shedding a hefty 43% on Friday.

So what: In a press release this morning, Pain Therapeutics provided investors with some more details about the Food and Drug Administration's denial to approve the company's pain drug, Remoxy. The company said that at issue were inconsistencies in the release performance of the drug during testing. Pain Therapeutics said that at this point it can't tell whether it's an issue with the testing method or the manufacturing, but what it does seem to know is that working out the kinks will take at least a year and perhaps "significantly longer."

Now what: When it comes to getting a new drug approved, time is most definitely money. Even if we assume that Remoxy does get approved a year from now, the income from the drug will be worth less to investors today because of the wait. Of course, it's not worth so much less that it justifies the shellacking that the stock has taken. That skydive may suggest that investors have serious concerns that Remoxy gets approved at all. The drug is being developed in partnership with Pfizer (NYSE: PFE ) and -- as I noted on Friday -- with the approval of Acura Pharmaceuticals' (Nasdaq: ACUR ) Oxecta, there are also concerns that Pfizer could shift some resources away from Remoxy.

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