Shares of the Molecular Partners AG (MOLN) stock were gloomy in the current market trading session today on January 18, 2022. MOLN stock price saw a decline of 16.84% to drop at $26.52 a share at the time of this writing. The trading volume on the last check was 136,170.
What’s Happening?
MOLN stock is falling amid the announcement of finalizing the license agreement between the Molecular Partners and Novartis for Ensovibep for COVID-19. The company has signed the license agreement with Novartis according to which the latter will in-license global rights to Ensovibep from Molecular Partners. For your intuition, Ensovibep is a DARPin antiviral therapeutic candidate intended to treat patients with Covid-19. Ensovibep showed positive topline results in the Phase 2 EMPATHY clinical study, according to the data.
The finalization of the agreement represents the 150 million milestone payment of CHF to Molecular Partners. According to the agreement, the company will be able to receive a 22% royalty on sales in commercial countries. The company will not receive the royalties in the lower-income countries to ensure affordability in these countries.
Molecular Partners AG is operating as the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that is developing therapies to treat wet age-related macular degeneration. The company is also involved in the development of COVID-19 antiviral therapeutic candidates. This antiviral therapeutic inactivates the SARS-CoV-2 and is currently in phase II clinical trial. MOLN stock has a market cap of $860.79 million and a 50,112 average trading volume.
Financial Guidance of the MOLN stock
The management is optimistic that the company will report CHF 133 million cash and cash equivalents as of December 31, 2021. The addition of CHF 150 million from Novartis will enable the company to run its operations well till 2025 excluding any potential royalty income and potential cash flows to or from R&D partners. This means that Molecular Partners is in a stable position, which is a positive sign for the long shareholders of the MOLN stock.
Conclusion
The sentiment is not positive for the MOLN stock following the announcement of an agreement with Novartis regarding Ensovibep for COVID-19. The stock has performed well in terms of per-share price as it gained 36.33% in the last six months. It would be interesting to see, how this stock performs in the year 2022. Investors eyeing this stock need to do detailed research before making any decision.
