Akcea Therapeutics (NASDAQ: AKCA) fell by almost 20% today, one of the biggest losers in the markets, after the biotech company announced that three of its top executives were suddenly leaving the company. This development came as a complete surprise to both analysts and investors alike, leading to fears that something might be amiss within the company.
CEO Paula Soteropoulos, President Sarah Boyce, and COO Jeff Goldberg all were departing the company suddenly, with Boyce and Soteropoulos also resigning from their positions on the board of directors. The former CEO and COO will continue to work as advisors to the company as it seeks out new candidates to fill in these now vacant positions. In the meantime, interim CEO Damien McDevitt steps in until a permanent replacement is found.
“On behalf of the entire Board, I want to thank Paula, Sarah and Jeff for their dedicated service to Akcea,” said Christopher Gabrieli, chairman of the Akcea Board of Directors. “Under their leadership, the company had significant achievements including becoming a publicly traded company, commercializing two rare disease products, progressing a pipeline of transformative medicines and establishing Akcea’s foundation.”
The news came as a complete surprise to everyone as there was no indication or suggestion that so many members of senior management were planning to leave. As such, the shake-up was seen as a worrying sign to investors with the markets sending the stock plunging to its lowest level seen in over a year.
Akcea Therapeutics is a biotech company that focuses on rare-disease treatments. This includes specific drugs such as Tegsedi, which treats a rare condition known as hattr amyloidosis, which is a gene mutation that causes specific proteins to clump together and harm internal organs.
Shares of Akcea Therapeutics fell by 19.7% over the course of the day in response to the news. The company first went public back in 2017, selling at $8 per share. Since then, shares have surged as high as the mid $30s before steadily falling back down, ending Tuesday at $18.04. In response to the departure of CEO Soteropoulos, analysts have begun to change their tune regarding the company.
One analyst from Wells Fargo ended up downgraded the stock from the equivalent of a “buy” rating to a “neutral” while also cutting his price target of the stock from $44 to just $24. This still suggests there is a 33% potential upside for the company, or roughly where the stock was trading before this plunge sent shares falling.
Akcea Therapeutics Company Profile
Akcea Therapeutics Inc is a late stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing drugs to treat patients with serious cardiometabolic diseases caused by lipid disorders. It is advancing a mature pipeline of novel drugs with the potential to treat multiple diseases.
The company’s drugs, volanesorsen, AKCEA-APO(a)-LRx, AKCEA-ANGPTL3-LRx and AKCEA-APOCIII-LRx, are all based on antisense technology developed by Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Its most advanced drug, volanesorsen, has completed a Phase 3 clinical program for the treatment of familial chylomicronemia syndrome, or FCS, and is currently in Phase 3 clinical development for the treatment of familial partial lipodystrophy, or FPL. – Warrior Trading News