Why Apellis Pharmaceutical Shares Are Plunging Today

Apellis Pharmaceuticals Inc APLS is trading lower Friday after the company announced its Phase 3 DERBY study in geographic atrophy did not meet the primary endpoint of GA lesion growth.

DERBY did not meet the primary endpoint by itself, but the company said, in a prespecified analysis of the combined DERBY and OAKS studies, monthly and every-other-month treatment with pegcetacoplan reduced GA lesion growth by 17%.

Analyst Assessment: Multiple analyst firms lowered price targets on the stock following the results:

• Needham analyst Joseph Stringer maintained Apellis with a Buy rating and lowered the price target from $85 to $70.
• BMO Capital analyst Matthew Luchini maintained Apellis with an Outperform rating and lowered the price target from $89 to $69.
• Wedbush analyst Laura Chico downgraded Apellis from Outperform to Neutral and lowered the price target from $71 to $39.
• Credit Suisse analyst Tiago Fauth maintained Apellis with a Neutral rating and lowered the price target from $50 to $38.
• Roth Capital analyst Elemer Piros maintained Apellis with a Buy rating and lowered the price target from $80 to $46.

Apellis is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel therapeutic compounds to treat disease through the inhibition of the complement system.

APLS Price Action: Apellis has traded as high as $73 and as low as $27.50 over a 52-week period.

The stock was down 39.3% at $33.78 at time of publication.