StockNews.com Begins Coverage on DURECT (NASDAQ:DRRX)

StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of DURECT (NASDAQ:DRRX) in a research note issued on Thursday. The firm set a “sell” rating on the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock.

DURECT Stock Performance

Shares of DRRX opened at $0.80 on Thursday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $0.80 and a 200-day simple moving average of $1.00. DURECT has a 52 week low of $0.70 and a 52 week high of $1.88. The firm has a market capitalization of $24.83 million, a P/E ratio of -1.31 and a beta of 0.91.

DURECT (NASDAQ:DRRX) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 26th. The specialty pharmaceutical company reported ($0.06) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.06 by ($0.12). DURECT had a negative net margin of 198.58% and a negative return on equity of 300.62%. The firm had revenue of $2.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.91 million. As a group, equities analysts forecast that DURECT will post -0.5 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On DURECT

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of DURECT by 4.8% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 319,905 shares of the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock worth $429,000 after acquiring an additional 14,658 shares during the period. Richmond Brothers Inc. raised its position in DURECT by 12.2% in the fourth quarter. Richmond Brothers Inc. now owns 1,281,176 shares of the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock worth $961,000 after purchasing an additional 138,920 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jane Street Group LLC lifted its stake in DURECT by 266.0% during the fourth quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 39,196 shares of the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 28,486 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 28.03% of the company’s stock.

DURECT Company Profile

DURECT Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company, develops medicines based on its epigenetic regulator program. The company's lead product larsucosterol (DUR-928), an endogenous, orally bioavailable small molecule that is in Phase IIb clinical trial to play a regulatory role in lipid metabolism, stress and inflammatory responses, and cell death and survival to treat alcohol-associated hepatitis, as well as completed Phase Ib clinical trial to treat patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.