The Worst-Performing Biotech Stocks Of 2014

It was generally a good year for biotechnology stocks, but the sector remains a risky one. Below are 20 biotechnology companies that lost more than 70% of their value in 2014. (Click here for a list of the best performers.)

There aren’t many lessons here. Tolstoy said that happy families are all alike, and but every unhappy family is unhappy in it’s own way. For biotech stocks that have really gone south, the story is often the opposite. They were developing one drug, it didn’t work, and the value of the company vanishes.

If we’re looking for lessons, it probably makes sense to look past the list of 20 companies here to the company to the company that would rank number 25: Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, which sells a rare disease drug to treat a genetic disease that causes super-high cholesterol. Marc Beer, the company’s chief executive, did a great job on several of the toughest biotech tasks: the company’s drug, Juxtapid, had lots of its earlier development handled by Bristol-Myers Squibb, and was cheap to develop; the drug could command a high price in a rare disease, too. But he claimed the eventual market for the drug would be much bigger than it eventually became. When Beer was pulled into salacious headlines involving a drug makers divorce (there were allegations of wild sex and drug use that he denies), the real problem for investors was that he kept missing his own sales guidance. That his public statements drew the ire of the Food and Drug Administration as overly promotional didn’t help either.

I wrote a very positive profile of Aegerion in 2013, although it did note the risk that the market was smaller than Beer thought, before writing that Aegerion bulls were totally missing the risk of cheaper and safer cholesterol drugs that could be approved soon. I wish I’d listened even more closely to cardiologists who said that there was no way Juxtapid could be as big as Beer predicted.

Ticker
Company
Total Total return in 2014 (%)
Market capitalization ($MIL)
Quarterly sales ($MIL)
NYMX
Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation
-93.4
14.3
0.7
EMITF
Elbit Imaging Ltd.
-93.1
46.3
87.1
PHMD
PhotoMedex, Inc.
-88.2
29.1
53.7
SPHS
Sophiris Bio Inc.
-85.4
9.1
0.0
WGBS
WaferGen Bio-systems, Inc.
-85.0
17.6
1.3
NSPH
Nanosphere, Inc.
-82.9
46.0
3.7
CYCC
Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
-82.6
16.1
0.7
MELA
MELA Sciences, Inc.
-81.3
7.2
0.2
CYTX
Cytori Therapeutics, Inc.
-81.0
45.2
0.5
RGDO
Regado Biosciences, Inc.
-80.9
30.7
0.0
BLFS
BioLife Solutions, Inc.
-80.5
19.8
1.2
ADHD
Alcobra Ltd.
-79.3
50.9
0.0
PRAN
Prana Biotechnology Ltd Sponsored ADR
-76.6
80.2
#N/A
EXEL
Exelixis, Inc.
-76.5
281.1
6.3
CBLI
Cleveland BioLabs, Inc.
-75.6
16.3
0.4
KMDA
Kamada Ltd
-74.4
136.7
#N/A
GENE
Genetic Technologies Limited Sponsored ADR
-73.1
8.6
#N/A
ACUR
Acura Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
-73.1
22.0
0.1
RGDX
Response Genetics, Inc.
-72.7
12.3
4.5
OGXI
OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
-72.5
48.7
4.8

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The Worst-Performing Biotech Stocks Of 2014