Traders Are Watching Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc (AUPH) After This Deal

Published on April 18, 2017 at 10:20 am by Insider Monkey Team in Market Movers, News

Traders are watching Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:AUPH) after the company completed a licensing deal with Merck Animal Health. Specifically, Aurinia has granted Merk Animal Health the worldwide rights to commercialize and develop Aurinia’s patented nanomicellar voclosporin ophthalmic solution for the treatment of dry eye syndrome in dogs. Although Aurinia will receive an upfront payment and royalties, it is unclear exactly what the financial details are as they were not disclosed in the initial press release. The lack of details could explain why Aurinia shares are relatively unchanged Tuesday morning.

Aurinia CEO Richard Glickman said, ‘This partnership with Merck Animal Health underscores our long-standing belief that voclosporin has the potential to be effectively used across a range of therapeutic areas, in addition to its primary potential indication for the treatment of lupus nephritis. In addition to enhancing dry eye treatment options in the animal health field, VOS has a differentiated product profile with long patent life that has the potential to compete in the multi-billion dollar human prescription dry eye market. While this ophthalmology project will continue to be advanced by Merck Animal Health, the Aurinia clinical team will remain focused on our lupus nephritis program, which is on track to begin enrollment for the AURORA Phase III trial this quarter’.

What Does The Smart Money Sentiment Say?

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Given that it’s a small company, none of the 742 elite funds in our database owned Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:AUPH) at the end of Q4. That metric might change going forward, however.

The Bottom Line

Traders are watching Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:AUPH) due to a deal announcement with Merk Animal Health. For more reading, check out ‘Most Addictive Drugs In the World‘.