Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, biopharmaceutical company Optimer Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: OPTR) has received the dreaded one-star ranking.
With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Optimer and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.
Optimer facts
|
Headquarters (founded) |
San Diego, Calif. (1998) |
|
Market Cap |
$599.0 million |
|
Industry |
Pharmaceuticals |
|
Trailing-12-Month Revenue |
$101.5 million |
|
Management |
Chairman/CEO Henry McKinnell |
|
Return on Equity (average, past 3 years) |
(47.3%) |
|
Cash/Debt |
$124.0 million / $0 |
|
Competitors |
Bayer |
Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.
On CAPS, 27% of the 149 members who have rated Optimer believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward.
Just last week, one of those Fools, All-Star zzlangerhans, succinctly summed up the bear case for our community:
Optimer stock is weathering yet another quarter of disappointing Dificid revenues by floating the old "strategic alternatives " flag. Sometimes the sale happens, more often than not it doesn't. I remember that tactic didn't work out very well for [Savient Pharmaceuticals]. Dificid has been a confusing underperformer, given that clostridium difficile infection continues to be a crisis in the US health care system and the available therapeutics are clearly insufficient. Perhaps a larger pharma feels like they have the skills to make Dificid more profitable, but I suspect antibiotics are a relatively low priority for most of those companies. Even if a buyout does occur, I think it will take long enough that most of the short-term momo traders will get bored and exit.
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