No More Gain
The stock price of Celltrion Inc., South Korea's leading biopharmaceutical company, has rapidly increased from the second half of last year when the company was expected to gain approval to sell a biosimilar drug in the United States. However, the figure declined due to profit-taking stocks after the company actually won the approval.
On Apr. 6, Celltrion stock closed at 110,300 won (US$95.09) on KOSDAQ, down 7.31 percent, or 8,700 won (US$7.50), from the previous trading day's close. This is largely due to the rapid increase in its profit-taking stocks at the news that the company received marketing authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Remsima, its first antibody biosimilar, according to industry experts.
Celltrion share prices skyrocketed by more than 32 percent in just a month from 84,500 won (US$72.84) at the end of last year as the U.S. FDA was expected to approve the company’s biosimilar drug for sale. Thus, stock market watchers think that its stock price will not increase further after the FDA approval since the expectation is already reflected in the figure. In fact, the stock trading volume of Celltrion on the day amounted to 43,409 shares, which was a whopping 562.25 percent higher than 735,885 shares from the previous day.
Meanwhile, some say that trauma of short stock selling also caused the sharp decline in stocks. As the amount of Celltrion’s short sale totaled 7.94 million stocks from early this year to Apr. 5, recording the highest figure among overall items in KOSDAQ, the company came under controversy over the fall in stock prices due to short stock selling.