Biotechnology is the one industry that has been showing signs of improvement in the COVID-19 affected market. This week a bunch of biotech companies is reporting their results and Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX), a solid performer in this group, is slated to publish its first-quarter 2020 earnings results tomorrow after market close. Vertex is mainly focused on treating cystic fibrosis (CF), a life-threatening disease that affects mostly the lungs. Backed by the bullish sentiment from the investors, VRTX stock reached its 52-week high ($277.80) last Thursday.
Analysts expect the biotech firm to post earnings of $1.83 per share on revenue of $1.29 billion for the to-be-reported quarter. This compared with earnings of $1.14 per share on revenue of $850.47 million in the year-ago quarter.
Looking back
For the final quarter of 2019, Vertex Pharma’s earnings and revenue results beat the market’s views. The company’s adjusted earnings jumped 31% to $1.70 per share and revenue surged 63% to $1.41 billion in the fourth quarter. For 2020, the Boston-based company had projected total product revenue to between $5.1 billion and $5.3 billion.
Development programs
Vertex is currently conducting multiple clinical trials globally that span various diseases, modalities and stages of development. These trials include late-stage, post-marketing or confirmatory studies for medicines with well-established benefit-risk profiles, as well as earlier-stage proof-of-concept studies for investigational medicines. Last month-end, CEO Jeffrey Leiden said:
“The COVID-19 pandemic is a rapidly evolving global health crisis that will require unprecedented utilization of health care resources that we expect will have an impact on our clinical trials. In order to ensure patient safety and the appropriate use of healthcare resources and to maintain study integrity, we have made proactive changes to some of our ongoing and planned clinical trials. Given the rapidly evolving pandemic, it is too early to precisely determine the long-term effects of the outbreak on trial timelines.”
Supply chain
Vertex stated that the global COVID-19 outbreak has not had any impact on the continuity of the supply chain for its approved medicines nor on its business outlook for 2020. The company’s manufacturing facilities have remained operational and continue to produce a new supply of medicines.
Shares of Vertex closed down 4.3% at $256.96 today and advanced 17% since the beginning of this year.