Shares of Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals soar on launch of its Xerava antibiotic in the US

Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:TTPH) shares shot up Friday in premarket trade after the biotech announced the US commercial launch of Xerava, an antibiotic treatment for complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAI).

Tetraphase’s stock shot up 11.7% to $2.67 in early trading.

Big Pharama has mostly abandoned costly research linked to the development of new antibiotics with devastating consequences for people. Against this backdrop, Watertown, Massachusetts-based Tetraphase has been an outlier in successfully introducing a new product, Xerava, that helps to deal with the problem of antibiotic resistance.

“The launch of Xerava marks an important milestone for Tetraphase and for physicians with patients in need of a new broad-spectrum antibiotic for serious, often life-threatening, multidrug-resistant infections,” Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals CEO Guy Macdonald said in a statement.

“This important achievement marks the culmination of many years of dedication and follows the regulatory approvals of Xerava both by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency,” he added.

Tetraphase said it is “well-prepared” for the commercial success of Xerava with an experienced sales team trained to make the treatment widely available to patients in need.

READ: Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals shares boosted by positive Phase 3 trial data

“With a wholesale acquisition cost price of $175 per treatment day, Xerava is well-suited for empiric use and is now available to hospitals to treat a range of appropriate patients with empiric and confirmed infections,” said Larry Edwards, Chief Operating Officer of Tetraphase.

Its modest price point is part of a sales strategy that will target hospital formularies and take advantage of the drug’s broader prescription indication than most other new antibiotics.

“The salesforce will be focusing on healthcare institutions responsible for treating the highest concentrations of gram-negative infections, covering approximately 90% of the gram-negative marketplace,” said Edwards.

The biopharmaceutical company develops novel antibiotics for bacterial infections, including those resistant to multiple drugs and viewed as public health threats by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Contact Uttara Choudhury at [email protected]

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Story by ProactiveInvestors