Although investors love penny stocks because of their high return potential, they can have devastating losses as well. This mainly happens due to penny stock news among other possible catalysts. Typically, with positive news comes bullish movement and vice-versa with negative news. Because these moves usually revolve around news, biotech penny stocks seem to always be in the limelight.
The biotech stock receiving the light today is VBI Vaccines Inc.
Who is VBI Vaccines?
VBI Vaccines Inc. (VBIV Stock Report) is a biopharmaceutical company seeking to treat and prevent hepatitis B with their vaccine, Sci-B-Vac®. As of now, the drug can be used in 11 countries and is currently in its Phase 3 trials in the US, Canada, and Europe. In order to create their drugs, VBI utilizes their eVLP Platform. The eVLP Platform creates particle vaccines that imitate its targeted virus to trigger an immune response.
What Was The Price Action For This Penny Stock?
For the last two year’s VBI had never traded below $1, but that changed on June 17th. The penny stock experienced a violent gap down going from $1.88 all the way down to $0.847, a 56% drop. Furthermore, the drop has only continued downward. VBI’s stock price has continued to go down to $0.58, an additional $0.267 decrease.
This was caused by some very negative news relating to its Phase 3 study of Sci-B-Vac®. The hepatitis B vaccine failed its secondary goal in the trial. The secondary goal had to do with the non-inferiority in patients 18 or older when comparing 2 doses of Sci-B-Vac® to 3 doses of Energix-B.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams explained, “Without a two-dose non-inferiority claim on a potential label, it will be difficult for Sci-B-Vac to gain significant share from Heplisav-B, even if its three-dose regimen does enter and compete in some markets.”
