If You Invested $1,000 In Ocugen Stock One Year Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Now

Investors who have owned stocks in the last year have generally experienced some big gains. In fact, the SPDR S&P 500 SPY total return over the last 12 months is 34.2%. But there is no question some big-name stocks performed better than others along the way.

Ocugen’s Big Run: One company that has been a home-run investment in the last year has been biotech stock Ocugen Inc OCGN.

Almost all the headlines about Ocugen in the past year have been about the company’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Ocugen announced in late December it had signed a letter of intent to co-develop COVID-19 vaccine candidate Covaxin along with Indian pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech. Bharat Biotech has a history of successful vaccine commercialization in South Asia.

Under the terms of the agreement, Ocugen is entitled to 45% of the profits from the commercialization of Covaxin in the U.S. and Canada.

In November, Bharat Biotech began Phase 3 testing of Covaxin in India. After encouraging preliminary results, Ocugen began trying to sell 100 million doses of the vaccine in February.

Unfortunately for investors, the U.S. FDA did not grant Covaxin an Emergency Use Authorization and instead recommended in June that Ocugen opt for a Biologic License Application that will likely require additional Phase 3 testing. The vaccine reportedly has a 78% efficacy rate against COVID-19, significantly lower than leading vaccines granted FDA emergency authorization.

For now, the biggest near-term hope for Covaxin may be that Canada or another developed economy will buy the vaccine to share with developing nations. One thing seems certain, however: Ocugen’s fate as an investment is closely tied to the ultimate outcome of Covaxin.

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At the beginning of 2020, Ocugen shares were trading at just 47 cents. By the beginning of March, the stock was still trading at 45 cents as news of the coronavirus spreading in China prompted concerns about a U.S. pandemic.

When the market crashed during the U.S. pandemic outbreak in March, shares of vaccine makers understandably soared as work began on developing vaccines to fight COVID-19. At the time, Ocugen was left for dead. The stock dropped as low as 26 cents during the height of the pandemic fears in March 2020

Unfortunately, when the market bounced in late March 2020, Ocugen kept heading lower. The stock ultimately hit its 2020 low on June 1 at a price of just 17 cents.

Ocugen shares jumped to $3.50 on massive volume in December when the Covaxin partnership was announced.

Ocugen In 2021, Beyond: Optimism about Covaxin coupled with massive short squeezes in a handful of popular social media stocks sent Ocugen shares skyrocketing up to as high as $18.77 in February 2021.

Concerns about the delta variant, the potential need for annual booster shots and the possibility of expanding the vaccines to children have investors hopeful that Covaxin will still eventually be a huge payoff for Ocugen. Today, the stock has a $1.6 billion market cap despite just $42,620 in 2020 revenue.

Still, Ocugen investors who bought one year ago and held on have generated a huge return on their investment. In fact, $1,000 in Ocugen stock bought on Aug. 9, 2020, would be worth about $15,100 today.

Looking ahead, analysts are skeptical Covaxin will provide the upside Ocugen bulls are expecting. The average price target among the five analysts covering the stock is $6, suggesting 27.9% downside from current levels.