La Jolla Pharma stock declines after reporting Q4 earnings results

La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company (LJPC) reported its Q4 and full-year 2018 results after the market closed today. The company reported a loss of $1.73 per share on revenue of $4.18 million. LJPC stock jumped more than 10% ahead of its earnings announcement during midday today and ended the day at $6.33, up 8.76%. The stock dropped about 2% during the after-hours of trading.

Analysts had expected the San Diego-based pharma company to post a loss of $1.74 per share on revenue of $4.16 million. Shares of La Jolla plunged to a yearly low ($5.01) on January 8, 2019, the day after the company announced the preliminary results for 2018 and outlook for 2019.

La Jolla Pharma shed almost half of its stock price after it announced the disappointing sales of its premium product Giapreza and the weaker outlook of Giapreza sales for 2019 on January 7. Sales of Giapreza, which was launched in March 2018, were about $4.2 million in the fourth quarter and about $10.1 million in the full-year 2018. The company predicts Giapreza sales to be in the range of $24 million to $28 million in 2019.

La Jolla expects a decision on the Giapreza Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in June 2019.

Also, the company expects to file a New Drug Application for its investigational product LJPC-0118 for the treatment of severe malaria in Q4 2019. La Jolla expects topline results of Phase 2 study of its investigational product LJPC-401 in patients with hereditary hemochromatosis in the latter half of 2019 and topline results of pivotal study of LJPC-401 in patients with beta thalassemia is expected in mid-2020.

La Jolla stock had declined 34% since the beginning of 2019 and 80% in the past 12 months period.

Listen to on-demand earnings calls and hear how management responds to analysts’ questions