Akebia Therapeutics (NASDAQ:AKBA) Announces Earnings Results, Misses Expectations By $0.05 EPS

Akebia Therapeutics (NASDAQ:AKBA) posted its earnings results on Thursday. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.10) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.05) by ($0.05), Zacks reports.

Akebia Therapeutics Stock Down 13.7 %

Shares of Akebia Therapeutics stock opened at $1.67 on Thursday. Akebia Therapeutics has a fifty-two week low of $0.80 and a fifty-two week high of $2.48. The firm has a market cap of $363.27 million, a PE ratio of -7.38 and a beta of 0.94. The business’s fifty day moving average is $2.02 and its two-hundred day moving average is $1.78.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Akebia Therapeutics news, SVP Steven Keith Burke sold 50,506 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.10, for a total transaction of $106,062.60. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 816,234 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,714,091.40. This represents a 5.83 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO John P. Butler sold 144,250 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.10, for a total value of $302,925.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,604,330 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,469,093. This represents a 5.25 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 280,579 shares of company stock valued at $589,216 in the last quarter. 4.10% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AKBA has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. StockNews.com lowered Akebia Therapeutics from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 6th. HC Wainwright reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $7.50 target price on shares of Akebia Therapeutics in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd.

About Akebia Therapeutics

Akebia Therapeutics, Inc, a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development and commercialization of therapeutics for patients with kidney diseases. The company’s lead product investigational product candidate is Vafseo (vadadustat), an oral hypoxia-inducible factor prolyl hydroxylase, which is in Phase III development for the treatment of anemia due to chronic kidney disease (CKD) in dialysis-dependent and non-dialysis dependent patients.