Small Cap Stock Gainers: ORPH, ALT, EXFO
12:51 pm Thursday, June 17th, 2021
Orphazyme A S ADR (NASDAQ: ORPH) stock soars 82% to $18.33 with continued volatility on above 40x average volume. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has set a review date of June 17 for ORPH stock’s key drug candidate ariclomal, which will be used to treat Niemann-Pick Disease Type C.
The company is also exploring the efficacy of ariclomal in treating other orphan diseases, though that endeavor hasn’t yielded positive results yet. Two different Phase 2/3 trials for treatment of Inclusion Body Myositis and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis did not meet their primary and secondary endpoints. In the company’s 2020 annual report, released in March 2021, addressable markets for IBM and ALS made up 45,000 of 62,000 patients across the four diseases discussed.
Altimmune Inc (NASDAQ:ALT) stock surged 17.62% to $16.62 after the company announced interim data from the ongoing Phase 1 trial of investigational GLP-1/glucagon dual receptor agonist ALT-801 in healthy overweight and obese volunteers; data showed that a mean weight loss of 5.4% was achieved by Week 6 with a once-weekly ALT-801 dose of 1.8 mg administered subcutaneously vs a weight gain of +0.9% in the placebo group, surpassing the pre-established treatment target of 2% weight loss.
Exfo Inc (NASDAQ: EXFO) gained to new multi-year highs after Viavi Solutions (VIAV) announced that it submitted a proposal to co’s board to acquire all of the co’s outstanding subordinate voting shares and multiple voting shares for US$7.50/share, valuing co at approx. US$430 mln and representing a premium to the consideration offered in the going-private transaction agreement announced by co earlier this month. The stock is currently halted for news pending.
