Chimerix Inc. (NASDAQ: CMRX)
Chimerix Inc. News
Before the market opened today, Chimerix Inc. (CMRX) announced that the company failed to meet testing goals during a Phase III trial that absolutely crushed shares in the premarket session to the tune of just over 27 points or roughly 75%. The Brincidofovir drug did not meet its target endpoint for the prevention of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection by week 24 after the hematopoietic cell transplant had taken place. This is especially important to investors because the Phase III trials are generally the last ones conducted before being approved by the Food and Drug Administration panel. I would expect some downgrades to follow over the next few days, so we’ll have to keep an eye out for that.
CMRX Technical
Looking at the daily chart you can see that CMRX was doing well for the first half of the year reaching highs of $58.04 back in August before trending lower and testing lows at $34 in October. Today shares opened at $7.86, a 78% drop from the previous days closing price of $35.57 and down over 80% on the year. This is the reason why I won’t hold pharmaceuticals overnight because it’s too much of a gamble. Of course, if it moves your way its great but the one time it doesn’t it could wipe out months of trading profits if not your whole account.
Average volume for CMRX is around 360,000 shares a day, today it had over 26 million shares traded and I’m guessing that it was a lot of stops getting hit and any long trying to bail on the stock. This is the type of move that can put a company out of business so we’ll have to see how CMRX handles this stock price and what they do going forward. Support levels will be hard to find as we are in unchartered territory but we should see some resistance in the $13 and $15 range. The only thing that would turn this stock around is a new catalyst so we’ll have to keep an eye out for that. A death cross appeared on the chart in early November and the 200 day moving average is currently sitting at $42.18. We may see a bounce over the next couple days as shorts cover positions so don’t get excited that it’s coming back to life just yet.
Company Profile
Chimerix, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company, which engages in the discovery, development and commercialization of novel, oral antiviral therapeutics designed to address unmet medical need. Its proprietary lipid technology to unlock the potential of some of the most broad-spectrum antivirals by enhancing their antiviral activity and safety profiles in convenient, orally administered dosing regiments. The company has two nucleotide compounds in clinical development that utilize their proprietary lipid technology. Brincidofovir and CMX157. Chimerix was founded by George R. Painter and Timothy Wollaeger in April 2000 and is headquartered in Durham, NC. (MarketWatch)
