On Monday, Ocugen stock was the most actively traded stock with a volume of 504.7 million shares.
Ocugen Inc (NASDAQ: OCGN) saw its stock skyrocket on Monday after disclosing on February 7 that there would be a direct offering of its shares at a 27% premium to investors from the healthcare industry.
After surging around 200% yesterday, today in the pre-market the stock is down 14%, trading at $13.58%.
In a statement made available on Monday, the biopharm company announced that a total of 3,000,000 shares of its common stock were available at $7.65 per share in a registered direct offering. That’s $2.4 more than Friday’s $5.25 closing price. The closing of the offering has been tentatively set to February 10, 2021, “subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions”.
The statement reads:
“The gross proceeds of the offering are expected to be approximately $23 million, prior to deducting placement agent’s fees and other offering expenses payable by Ocugen. Ocwen intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, capital expenditures, working capital and general and administrative expenses.”
Ocugen stock was at the top of the gainer list in afternoon trading. It was also the most actively traded stock with a volume of 504.7 million shares, almost 8 times more than the 63.1 million full-day average over the past 4 weeks. The biopharmaceutical company’s shares have soared 6,255.2% in a three month period.
While this feat can partly be attributed to the direct offering, Ocugen’s recently announced partnership with Indian company Bharat Biotech. The deal sees the two companies working together to develop a Covid-19 vaccine for the United States market. The vaccine, called Covaxin, is an “advanced stage whole-virion inactivated COVID-19 vaccine”. Is has been permitted for use by India’s Central Licensing Authority but only in emergency situations.
Investors are optimistic about the deal, which could result in Ocugen walking away with 45% of the profits from sales. All this hinges on if the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) follows suit and approves it for emergency use.
Another little-known biotech company that had a great day Monday was Cassava Sciences. Shares for the company were up 32%. Investors are confident in Cassava’s “significant program progress” for its simufilam drug candidate for Alzheimer’s disease.
The company hopes to start a phase 3 clinical trial later this year, increasing target enrollment to 150 patients and working to broaden its studies while providing interim analysis of results as they come in.
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