BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:BCRX) Shares Down 5.8% – What’s Next?

Shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:BCRX) traded down 5.8% during mid-day trading on Friday . The company traded as low as $6.69 and last traded at $6.7550. 1,878,043 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 62% from the average session volume of 4,889,599 shares. The stock had previously closed at $7.17.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have weighed in on the company. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their price objective on BioCryst Pharmaceuticals from $24.00 to $26.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 15th. Citizens Jmp cut their target price on shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals from $27.00 to $25.00 and set a “market outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, November 5th. HC Wainwright increased their price target on shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 15th. Needham & Company LLC decreased their target price on BioCryst Pharmaceuticals from $20.00 to $18.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, November 4th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (e+)” rating on shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $19.50.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Price Performance

The firm has a market cap of $1.41 billion, a PE ratio of -133.70, a P/E/G ratio of 0.41 and a beta of 0.80. The business’s fifty day moving average is $7.35 and its 200-day moving average is $7.76.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:BCRX) last posted its earnings results on Monday, November 3rd. The biotechnology company reported $0.06 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.07 by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $159.40 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $162.91 million. BioCryst Pharmaceuticals had a negative return on equity of 4.24% and a negative net margin of 1.46%.BioCryst Pharmaceuticals’s revenue for the quarter was up 36.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned ($0.07) EPS. Analysts forecast that BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. will post -0.36 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other BioCryst Pharmaceuticals news, insider Alane P. Barnes sold 21,773 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.65, for a total transaction of $166,563.45. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 398,751 shares in the company, valued at $3,050,445.15. The trade was a 5.18% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 183,453 shares of company stock valued at $1,330,965. Corporate insiders own 5.10% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BioCryst Pharmaceuticals

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management raised its position in shares of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals by 34.7% during the 4th quarter. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management now owns 32,910 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $257,000 after purchasing an additional 8,474 shares during the last quarter. Counterweight Ventures LLC boosted its position in BioCryst Pharmaceuticals by 2.1% during the fourth quarter. Counterweight Ventures LLC now owns 95,384 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $744,000 after acquiring an additional 2,000 shares during the last quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in BioCryst Pharmaceuticals by 31.2% during the 4th quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. now owns 112,539 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $878,000 after acquiring an additional 26,794 shares in the last quarter. CIBC Bancorp USA Inc. acquired a new stake in BioCryst Pharmaceuticals during the third quarter worth about $169,000. Finally, Voleon Capital Management LP purchased a new position in BioCryst Pharmaceuticals in the third quarter valued at $816,000. 85.88% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About BioCryst Pharmaceuticals

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc is a clinical‐stage biotechnology company headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, that focuses on the discovery and development of novel, oral small‐molecule medicines for rare and serious diseases. Since its founding in 1986, the company has leveraged structure‐based drug design to advance a pipeline of targeted therapeutics designed to address underlying disease mechanisms rather than just treat symptoms.

The company’s first commercial product, Orladeyo (berotralstat), is an oral kallikrein inhibitor approved for the prophylactic treatment of hereditary angioedema (HAE) in both the United States and Europe.