Pfenex Inc. (NYSE:PFNX) is an active mover in today’s trading session. At the time of writing, the stock is sitting at $3.38, which is up $1.30 (or 62.5%) from when it closed on yesterday’s market at $2.08.
The consensus rating for the stock is leaning towards a Buy rating, at 1.70. However, as it stands now, the stock is not showing a very strong level of volatility, with the volatility for the week sitting at 7.06% and 7.91% for the month. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it means that, on the whole, the stock hasn’t been moving very much in either direction. The higher the volatility of a stock, the more likely that stock is to either make a profit or lose money.
What could be causing this climb in stock? It may be connected to the company’s most recent announcement that was released earlier in the day. Pfenex, a clinical-stage biotechnology company that focuses on protein production and bioanalytic technology, has amended the agreement that was made with Jazz Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:JAZZ) last year which allowed Jazz to develop and commercialize multiple early stage hematology product candidates worldwide. The amended agreement gives Pfenex an amendment fee of $43.5 million. In addition, Pfenex will also begin to receive development milestone payments from Jazz.
Following the amendment, the company was able to earn $18.5 million in its fourth quarter as a result of its partnership with Jazz Pharmaceuticals. $13.5 million of that was through the development milestone payments, and the remaining $5 million was from a portion of the amendment fee. The agreement could end up earning Pfenex a total of $189.25 million.
If this is the case, the agreement Pfenex has with Jazz will play a significant role in maintaining and improving Pfenex’s finances, and the current increase in the stock could be the beginning of the benefits Pfenex will see from this amendment.
The company’s CEO Eef Schimmelpennink is optimistic about the work being done through Pfenex’s collaboration with Jazz. Schimmelpennink states that the collaboration “illustrates the strength of the Pfenex production platform and the differentiated programs it is able to generate.”
I’ll be keeping my eye on Pfenex stock for the next couple of days to see how much of a difference this amendment will make, so stay tuned.
Featured Image: twitter
