A bottom-line whiff and reduced guidance made the company an outlier for the wrong reasons on Hump Day.
An earnings miss and sharply reduced guidance for its ONE commercialized product doomed Ascendis Pharma (ASND -11.27%) to a bad Wednesday on the stock market. The biotech’s shares fell by more than 11% in price after it divulged its latest set of quarterly results. By comparison, the bellwether S&P 500 index suffered a relatively modest drop of 0.2%.
Declines and misses in the second quarter
Ascendis, a biotech based in Denmark, took the wraps off its second quarter soon after market hours on Tuesday. The company posted revenue of slightly under 36 million euros ($40 million) for the period, a figure that was well down from the more than 47 million euros ($52 million) it earned in the same quarter of 2023.
More encouragingly, Ascendis managed to narrow its net loss over that stretch of time. Its deficit was a bit more than 109 million euros ($120 million), which equates to 1.91 euros ($2.11) per share. The year-ago shortfall was almost 122 million euros ($135 million).
Still, it didn’t meet the average analyst estimate for either revenue or profitability. The consensus prognosticator figure for the former was almost 84 million euros ($93 million) and for net loss was 1.36 euros ($1.50) per share.
The bulk of the company’s revenue came from Skytrofa, a growth hormone deficiency treatment. That was something of an issue as the drug’s sales fell by 27% year over year to 26 million euros ($29 million). Ascendis said that volume growth nearly doubled, but this dynamic “was offset by the cost associated with broader market access.”
Guidance reduced for top-drug’s sales
Since Skytrofa remains foundational to Ascendis’ business, investors were discouraged by management’s updated guidance for the drug’s full-year 2024 sales. The company now anticipates it will bring in 220 million euros to 240 million euros ($243 million to $265 million). Formerly, it was modeling 320 million euros to 340 million euros ($354 million to $376 million). Meanwhile, both ranges sit below the average analyst forecast of nearly 351 million euros ($388 million).
Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
