Insider Buying Shines Spotlight on 3 Stocks That Look Cheap

Last but not least, Esperion Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:ESPR) also had one of its most influential insiders buy shares last week. President and Chief Executive Officer Timothy M. Mayleben snapped up 7,200 shares on Friday at prices that fell between $13.84 and $14.66 per share. After the recent purchases, the CEO currently holds an ownership stake of 31,014 shares. The pharmaceutical company that focuses on developing low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) lowering therapies for the treatment of patients with hypercholesterolemia has seen its share price decline by 70% over the past year.

Esperion Therapeutics held an End-of-Phase 2 meeting regarding its lead product candidate ETC-1002 with the FDA in August 2015, and stated that it would not have to complete a cardiovascular outcomes trial (CVOT), thus having a “clear regulatory path forward for development and approval of ETC-1002″. However, on September 28, the company announced that the FDA had actually encouraged the company to start a CVOT, while those cardiovascular trials might be necessary to gain approval of ETC-1002. The stock plummeted significantly on the back of the news and it has not managed to recover since then. Hence, the aforementioned purchase might be seen as a sign of management’s confidence in the future of ETC-1002 and the company’s overall performance. The smart money sentiment towards the stock was very negative in the third quarter on that news however, as the number of money managers that we track which had positions in the company dropped to 18 from 28 quarter-over-quarter. Rob Citrone’s Discovery Capital Management acquired a 524,200-share stake in Esperion Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:ESPR) during the July-to-September period.

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