Opko falls as company addresses exec's stock sales

Opko shares down after company issues statement on executive's stock sales

Opko Health Inc. shares fell Friday after the company issued a statement to address concerns about one of its executive's recent stock sales.

THE SPARK: The biopharmaceutical company said Friday that Adam Logal, Opko's vice president, chief accounting officer and treasurer, recently sold 50,000 of his shares "to address pressing family circumstances."

Opko said that no other company officer has exercised common stock options or sold any shares during the last 12 months. No other company officers or insiders are currently considering stock sales, Opko said.

It also said that the company's CEO Phillip Frost bought 11.2 million shares of the company's common stock during 2012 and 383,500 shares so far during 2013. Frost and several other company officers and insiders also invested in the company's recently completed $175 million convertible debt offering, it said.

THE BIG PICTURE: Opko's share value has increased over 60 percent between December and February. The company has had a number of recent acquisitions and drugs in the late stages of development.

A post by Richard Pearson on the investing web site Seeking Alpha Friday said that the company's shares appear ripe for a pullback.

Pearson said that Opko's shares are essentially overvalued at this point, given the company's immediate revenue potential. He pointed the insider's trade and heavy share issuance by the company as reason for concern. And he said that the bulk of Frost's share purchases were done at the lower end of the stock's price range, which he said signaled to the market to jump on board with their own buying.

SHARE ACTION: Shares fell 34 cents, 5 percent, to $6.47 on high volume trading after dropping low as $6.08 earlier in the day. Its shares have traded between $4 and $7.22 in the past 52 weeks.