Zydus Lifesciences Hits One-Month High As FDA Approves Its Hypertension Drug
The stock rose as much as 4.53% during the day to Rs 1,144.90 apiece on the NSE.
Shares of Zydus Lifesciences Ltd. jumped to the highest level in over a month on Thursday after receiving a tentative approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for a hypertension drug.
The tentative approval is for Zydus to market Azilsartan medoxomil tablet, which is an angiotensin II receptor blocker that is used to treat hypertension to lower blood pressure. The pharmaceutical firm will make the drug at its formulation manufacturing facility at Ahmedabad, according to an exchange filing on Thursday.
The company now has 398 approvals and over 460 abbreviated new drug application approvals from the FDA, it said.
Azilsartan medoxomil tablets can be used either alone or in combination with other drugs to treat hypertension. It had annual sales of $89 million in the US, according to IQVIA.
On the NSE, Zydus' stock rose as much as 4.53% during the day to Rs 1,144.90 apiece, the highest since May 21. It was trading 3.79% higher at Rs 1,136.80 per share, compared to 0.19% advance in the benchmark Nifty at 2:48 p.m.
The share price has gained 98.10% in the last 12 months and 64.94% on a year-to-date basis. The total traded volume so far in the day stood at 2.4 times its 30-day average. The relative strength index was at 66.54.
Out of 32 analysts tracking the company, 14 have a 'buy' rating on the stock, 11 recommend a 'hold' and seven suggest 'sell', according to Bloomberg data. The average of 12-month analyst price targets implies a potential downside of 8.9%