What happened
There's nothing like a good quarter to juice a company's stock. That was the case on Tuesday with ambitious biotech Ocugen (OCGN), whose share price leaped 7% higher after the company unveiled its third-quarter results.
So what
Ocugen, which surged to prominence during the coronavirus pandemic for its efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, published those results before market open. These revealed that the pre-revenue company more than doubled its net loss to nearly $22 million ($0.10 per share) from the year-ago shortfall of just under $10.8 million.
Despite the notably deeper deficit, the clutch of analysts following Ocugen stock were essentially modeling that $0.10 per-share loss for the biotech.
As is customary for biotechs, Ocugen also provided an update of its development programs.
The Covaxin coronavirus vaccine it licensed for U.S. commercialization from an outside developer -- India's Bharat Biotech -- has yet to win Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. However, Ocugen is plowing ahead with its own effort. The company said it aims to initiate clinical trials with its OCU500 mucosal COVID vaccine. Meanwhile, it's working to finalize the phase 3 protocol for a trial of its NeoCart knee-cartilage treatment.
Now what
Although it still hasn't entered the coronavirus vaccine race, which is (hopefully) in its later stages, Ocugen remains a closely followed title with the meme stock crowd. The company's quarterly results didn't indicate any great advancement, nor did the clinical updates. But both were apparently enough to strengthen the resolve of Ocugen bulls -- a hardy bunch given the increasingly long odds of success with the Covaxin license.
