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.