What happened
Shares of clinical-stage biotech Ocugen (OCGN 8.59%) climbed as high as 14.2% on Thursday, to $1.29, shortly before noon.
So what
Ocugen focuses on gene and cell therapies and vaccines to treat retinal diseases, infectious diseases, and orthopedic conditions. The stock is a meme favorite, listed at No. 79 on the Robinhood Top 100 list, and as such has been volatile.
It's possible, with 18.87% of the float sold short, some traders could be attempting a short squeeze. The company didn't have any announcements on Wednesday or Thursday. It's down more than 72% so far this year and is a lot closer to its 52-week low of $1.09 than its 52-week high of $5.06.
Now what
Ocugen doesn't have any marketed products and no revenue yet. In the third quarter, the company reported an earnings per share (EPS) loss of $0.10, compared to an EPS loss of $0.05 in the third quarter of 2021.
It reported $101.6 million in cash as of Sept. 30, enough to fund operations into the fourth quarter of 2023. That's not a big window to turn things around.
The healthcare company has had some positive news lately, though. On Dec. 16, three days after its executives rang the closing bell for the Nasdaq Exchange, Ocugen got approval from the Food and Drug Administration for the design of the company's Phase 3 study of regenerative cell therapy NeoCart. The therapy is being tested to repair lesions in the knee cartilage of adults.
The concern for investors, however, is that with so little cash, the biotech presents a great deal of risk since it will likely need more funding to bring any of its therapies to market.
