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%.
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.
