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 Supernus Pharmaceuticals (SUPN +0.86%), a specialty pharmaceutical company developing therapies to treat central nervous system disorders, rose as much as 10% after reporting its fourth-quarter results last night.
So what: For the quarter, Supernus reported net product revenue of $10.3 million as Oxtellar XR prescriptions jumped to 9,866, a 37% increase from the sequential third quarter, and Trokendi XR prescriptions grew to 11,244 in its first full quarter of commercialization, an increase of approximately 10,000 prescriptions over the sequential third quarter. Despite gross margin for the quarter coming in at a healthy 89.6%, Supernus' net loss widened to $0.65 per share. Comparatively speaking, Wall Street was looking for a narrower loss of $0.55 per share, but Supernus crushed its revenue estimate of $7.8 million. Furthermore, Supernus issued a full-year revenue forecast of $75 million-$85 million which appears in line with the Street's consensus estimate of $82.8 million.
Now what: Although Supernus missed EPS estimates by $0.10, it's pretty evident that its marketed epilepsy products, Oxtellar XR and Trokendi XR, are being well accepted by physicians. It remains to be seen what the remainder of its pipeline will hold with regard to SPN-810 and SPN-812, which are currently in midstage studies for impulsive aggression in ADHD and ADHD itself, but I suspect that Oxtellar XR and Trokendi XR alone have enough momentum to possibly make Supernus profitable on an ongoing basis perhaps as soon as the latter half of this year. With that being said, I could still see there being additional upside potential in shares of Supernus.
