Emisphere Technologies, Inc. (OTCMKTS:EMIS) Attracts Attention Thanks To New PR

Yesterday Emisphere Technologies, Inc. (OTCMKTS:EMIS) caught the attention of the market and enjoyed some rather intense trading. The daily volume of over 349 thousand shares was more than 4.5 times higher than the monthly average. The outcome of the session wasn’t that impressive though and EMIS registered a gain of a little over 6% closing at $0.67 per share. During the session the stock spiked to $0.76 but such price ranges simply couldn’t be maintained.

The reason for the excitement was the new PR issued by EMIS. In it the company announced that their Eligen licensee Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) will initiate a global phase 3a development program with oral semaglutide, a once daily oral formulation of the long-acting GLP-1 analogue semaglutide, for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. According to the PR the phase 3a program will consist of seven trials and 8000 patients with type 2 diabetes.

The Novo Nordisk licensing deal is rather important for EMIS because so far the financial results of the company leave a lot to be desired. The company launched its Eligen B12 product, a once-daily oral prescription medical food tablet that normalizes B12 levels without the need for an injection, at the end of March. The financial report for the second quarter of the year, the first full quarter of Eligen B12 sales, contained the following numbers:

• $3.25 million cash
• $7.3 million total current assets
• $15.4 million total current liabilities
• $88 thousand revenue
• $4.5 million operating loss

Although the fact that EMIS are finally generating revenues cannot be denied for now the amounts are quite underwhelming. At the same time the operating loss increased by close to 3 times compared to the same period last year. The company did report a net income of $7.1 million for the quarter but that was only possible thanks to a $13.9 million change in the fair value of derivative instruments. For the first half of 2015 the net loss stands at more than $25 million.

Thanks to a $20 million secured credit facility from 2014 Emisphere had enough resources to fund their operations but on July 1 they borrowed the last $2 million available under the deal. This company expects to have sufficient capital to meet its needs through the end of the year. Beyond that EMIS will need to find additional finance sources.

Although EMIS lack some of the more glaring problems that are usually displayed by the various pennystock ventures their stock still requires doing your own research before committing to any trades.