What happened
As a stock smack dab in the midst of the ever up-and-down biotech sector, Axsome Therapeutics (AXSM 0.49%) has certainly had some good trading days. Alas, Monday wasn't one of them, as investors traded the company's shares down modestly. This was on the back of the company's latest quarterly earnings release.
So what
For its third quarter, Axsome's total revenue came in at $16.8 million, up from zero in the same quarter last year.
The dramatic change came from the approval and commercialization of Sunosi, a drug that treats the effects of excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) in patients suffering from narolepsy or obstructive sleep apnea. The biotech bought the global commercialization and intellectual property rights to the drug earlier this year from Jazz Pharmaceuticals, forking over an upfront payment of $53 million for the privilege.
On the bottom line, Axsome's quarterly net loss deepened to nearly $45 million, or $1.07 per share, from third quarter 2021's almost $35 million.
Neither headline figure was far from the average analyst estimates. Collectively, prognosticators following Axsome stock were modeling just under $17.2 million on the top line for the quarter, and a per-share net loss of $1.08. So while the company didn't post much worse-than-expected results, it didn't surprise on the upside, either.
Now what
Happily for Axsome, Sunosi is no longer its only product on pharmacy shelves. Late last month it launched sales of Auvelity, a prescription-only treatment for major depressive disorder. So while the quarterly results were nothing to write home about, the company is clearly progressing with its business -- a fact that likely prevented a more dramatic investor sell-off on Monday.
