Eyetech Falls in Wake of FDA Panel Meeting
08/30/04 - 02:51 PM EDT
Robert Steyer
Shares of Eyetech Pharmaceuticals(EYET Quote - Cramer on EYET - Stock Picks) fell Monday even though several analysts said the company's experimental eye disease drug Macugen has a good chance of securing government approval.
The analysts were encouraged by what they said were favorable comments Friday from some members of an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration, which reviewed the drug Eyetech is proposing as a treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration, or wet AMD. The disease causes a disintegration of vision over time, affecting the center of the field of vision and leading to blindness. Company-sponsored tests show that Macugen can reduce the rate of vision loss. The FDA advisory committee didn't vote on Friday, but analysts still expressed confidence that the panel would support the drug. The FDA isn't bound by opinions from its advisory committees, but it usually follows their recommendations. Still, Eyetech's stock was down $3.30 or 8.8%, to $34.16 Monday. Volume was almost four times the average daily trade over the last three months. Eyetech's stock was halted for much of Friday while the advisory committee deliberated. The stock traded for about 30 minutes on Friday and was extremely erratic, going as high as $42 and as low as $35.46 before closing at $37.46. Friday's trading volume was a staggering 3.2 million shares, or about five times the normal daily trading volume for the past three months. One possibility for the skidding stock has been the expiration of lock-up agreements affecting New York-based Eyetech, which went public in late January. On July 28, approximately 15.6 million shares became eligible for sale upon the expiration of a 180-day lock-up agreement, according to an Eyetech prospectus. More timely is the fact that some 13.3 million other shares became eligible for sale Aug. 26 when a 90-day lock-up agreement on a follow-on offering expired, according to a prospectus.
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