CPRX - Why Catalyst Pharmaceuticals Stock Crashed in August
Shares of the rare-disease drugmaker Catalyst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CPRX) fell by a staggering 23.7% during the month of August, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Catalyst's shares hit the skids last month following a negative late-stage readout for its flagship drug, Firdapse, as a treatment for muscle-specific kinase myasthenia gravis (also known as MuSK-positive myasthenia gravis). MuSK-positive myasthenia gravis is a debilitating neuromuscular disorder with few viable treatment options.
Unfortunately, this latest failure is the drug's second major miss in the clinic in less than a year. In 2019, Firdapse also flopped in a late-stage trial for another neuromuscular disorder known as congenital myasthenic syndrome. Taken together, these two lost indications were worth upwards of $400 million in annual sales for Catalyst's one and only approved product.
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