Fighting either type of diabetes is a challenge that can follow some around for their entire lives. That’s why news out of healthcare stock Oramed Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ORMP) was such a welcome development in Monday’s trading. Sufficiently welcome to send Oramed shares up over 10%.
Protect Your Portfolio Against Market Uncertainty
- Discover companies with rock-solid fundamentals in TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter.
- Receive undervalued stocks, resilient to market uncertainty, delivered straight to your inbox.
The good news for Oramed didn’t come so much from Oramed itself as it did from its strategic partner, Hefei Tianhui Biotechnology, which completed its Phase 3 trials for a drug known as ORA-D-013-1, an oral insulin medication for treating type 2 diabetes. With the testing complete, it now goes on to the National Medical Products Administration in China, where the data generated from the study will be used as part of a marketing application to make the drug available for sale.
The study of ORA-D-013-1 revealed that, in certain populations, oral insulin can work out very nicely. One possible issue that will likely emerge is that all those involved in the testing had a similar baseline body mass index (BMI), which means they were roughly the same height and weight. Or, at least, they shared a similar ratio of height and weight. The news comes at a good time, though, at least for one person: conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who recently put $4.8 million behind Oramed not long after Oramed revealed it was considering strategic alternatives.
It also comes at a good time for insiders. Insider trading at Oramed has been very buy-weighted in the last three months, with insiders picking up an additional $213,300 in shares. That move has swung insider sentiment to “positive” overall.