Why Titan Pharmaceuticals Shares Are Rising

Shares of Titan Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: TTNP) saw a handy gain early in Friday’s session following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of its partner’s opioid dependence treatment. Specifically, the FDA approved Probuphine, Braeburn Pharmaceuticals’ first implant for the maintenance treatment of opioid dependence in patients who have sustained clinical stability on low-to-moderate doses of buprenorphine.

For some background: Probuphine delivers buprenorphine continuously for up to six months and should be used as part of a complete treatment program to include counseling and psychosocial support.

However this treatment is administered through Titan’s continuous drug delivery system ProNeura. So a win for Braeburn is a win for Titan.

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The systemic side effects for Probuphine are similar to those that are seen with buprenorphine and in the Probuphine clinical trials included: headache, insomnia, upper respiratory tract infection, nausea, anxiety, back pain, depression, constipation and vomiting. In addition, common implant site reactions included pain, itching, redness and swelling.

Behshad Sheldon, president and CEO of Braeburn Pharmaceuticals, commented:

Patients and their doctors now have Probuphine as a new option for the six-month treatment of opioid dependence. Opioid addiction is a chronic disease and should be treated the same way we treat other serious, chronic diseases—with evidence-based medicine. With 78 people in the U.S. dying each day from opioids, it’s important that patients have more treatments to choose from as no one option will work for everyone. Probuphine is the first of what we hope will be many new and innovative approaches to treating this disease.  We are grateful to all of the patients, investigators and to NIDA for their help and dedication that has brought us to this point.

Shares of Titan were trading up 12% at $7.92 Friday morning, with a consensus analyst price target of $7.75 and a 52-week trading range of $2.57 to $10.00.

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