Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of Hyperion Therapeutics (NASDAQ: HPTX), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies to treat orphan diseases and hepatology-based disorders, jumped as much as 16% after third-quarter earnings results were reported.
So what: For the quarter, Hyperion delivered revenue of $15.5 million, compared to no revenue in the year-ago period when it was merely a clinical-stage company. Ravicti, its recently approved drug to manage select types of urea cycle disorders, saw a 58% revenue jump over the sequential second quarter, to $9.8 million. Despite just recently launching Ravicti, Hyperion was able to report an adjusted profit of $0.15 per share for the quarter, light years ahead of Wall Street's expectations for a slight loss and big reversal from last year's $0.41 per-share adjusted loss.
Now what: My big concern with Hyperion was how well it would do in launching Ravicti. That question appears to have been answered with this report -- the drug's sales growth looks strong. That doesn't exactly make Hyperion a buy in my book just yet, as the company is already valued at five times most peak sales estimates on the Street for Ravicti ($100 million). But the sell-side case also took a major blow with this earnings report. It looks as if we may have a stalemate here for a while.
