Steven Cohen (Trades, Portfolio), founder of Point72 Asset Management, made a 1098% increase to his holding of Pacira Pharmaceuticals (PCRX, Financial), he revealed this week.
Cohen indicated an increased liking for the stock since at least the second quarter, boosting his position by 143%. On Aug. 21, he added 186,682 shares to the position, for a total holding of 2,038,682.
The investor is the chairman and CEO of the Point72 hedge fund, a family office managing his money and certain employees’, since its founding in 2014. In addition to Point72, which has a flexible investment strategy that includes fundamental bottom-up approaches, Cohen runs an automated-strategies business, a private equity business and a venture capital business.
Cohen has allocated roughly 18% of his Point72 long portfolio to stocks in the healthcare sector. It is also the largest sector represented in the portfolio, followed closely by consumer cyclical positions at 17.5%. His top positions in the sector hail from a variety of industries: Biogen (BIIB, Financial), Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY, Financial) and McKesson Corp. (MCK, Financial).
Cohen’s latest bet on Pacira gives him 5.1% of the company. At an average stock price of $35.75 the day of the buy, his price tag for the acquisition probably totaled around $66.8 million.
Pacira is a specialty pharmaceutical company that focuses on acute care products and treatments that do not involve opioids. Exparel, one of its treatments, is a local pain reliever used in surgical sites. The treatment combines with its product delivery technology, DepoFoam, which releases drugs over time. Exparel is currently in a stage-four study testing its use in total knee replacement surgery. The treatment was found to significantly reduce the need for opioids and lowered pain scores.
In a second-quarter earnings release, Pacira Pharmaceuticals CEO Dave Stack said the company has made progress in its goal to make Exparel the “only single-dose long-acting local analgesic for postsurgical pain.”
In the second quarter, Pacira reported a 6% increase in net product sales to $69.8 million year over year, with total revenues of $70.9 million, up 2% year over year. Its GAAP net loss stretched to $19.7 million, or a loss per share of 49 cents, from last year’s a net loss of $8.0 million or 21 cents per share. Also in the second quarter, Pacira eliminated its DepoCyte product at a loss of $5 million. The treatment accounted for roughly 1% of total revenue.
For full-year 2017, Pacira maintained its guidance of net products sales between $290 million and $310 million, with non-GAAP gross margins of approximately 70%, non-GAAP research and development expense of $50 million to $60 million and non-GAAP selling, general and administrative costs of $145 to $155 million.
See more of Steven Cohen (Trades, Portfolio)’s stocks at his portfolio here.
