What happened
Shares of Novocure (NVCR 2.86%) are sinking today, down by 15.4% as of 10:44 a.m. ET. The decline came after the company announced its preliminary full-year and fourth-quarter 2022 net revenue numbers.
Novocure said that its total preliminary net revenue for 2022 rose 1% year over year to $537.8 million. Its total preliminary net revenue for Q4 is $128.4 million, down 3.6% from the prior-year period.
So what
Investors were excited last week after Novocure announced good news from a late-stage study of its Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields). The company reported that TTFields met the primary endpoint of the study by improving overall survival in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Today's sneak peek at the full-year and Q4 2022 results, however, underscored Novocure's near-term challenges. Growth is definitely slowing significantly for TTFields, marketed under the brand name Optune, in treating glioblastoma and malignant pleural mesothelioma.
The decline on Monday doesn't completely erase the big gain for the healthcare stock so far in 2023. It does remind investors, though, that there's still a long way to go for Novocure to potentially launch TTFields as a treatment for NSCLC.
Now what
Novocure is scheduled to present at the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. Expect the company's management to focus more on the NSCLC opportunity for TTFields than the headwinds for the therapy in its current approved indications. Novocure plans to file for U.S. and European regulatory approvals for TTFields in treating NSCLC in the second half of this year.
