Theravance Biopharma Announces Launch Of New Drug In Canada; Investors Shrugging Off News

Shares of Theravance Biopharma Inc TBPH were trading flat by noon on Tuesday after the company announced the commercial launch of VIBATIV in Canada.

Shares of Theravance Biopharma opened for trading at $16.16 and quickly dipped to an intra-day low of $15.20 before rebounding.

VIBATIV is a bactericidal, once-daily antibiotic with in vitro potency and a dual mechanism of action against Gram-positive bacteria.

Theravance Biopharma noted that the drug is now approved in Canada for the treatment of adult patients with hospital-acquired bacterial pneumonia (HAP) and ventilator-associated bacterial pneumonia (VAP) known or suspected to be caused by susceptible isolates of Staphylococcus aureus including methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) and MRSA.

The drug is being marketed and sold in Canada by PENDOPHARM, a division of Pharmascience.

"As the challenge of treating MRSA-related infections continues to increase, it is essential that patients and healthcare practitioners around the world have access to potent agents with the proven ability to resolve these often difficult-to-treat pathogens. With this in mind, we are pleased that the Canadian healthcare community will now have access to one of the industry's most potent antibiotics against susceptible Gram-positive pathogens," said Frank Pasqualone, Senior Vice President, VIBATIV Development and Operations at Theravance Biopharma.

"This launch represents an important milestone in our strategic expansion of VIBATIV as a global brand, designed to bring the therapeutic benefits of the drug to the largest number of patients possible. In addition to treating individual patients, we believe that broadening the availability of VIBATIV, an antibiotic with demonstrated efficacy against difficult-to-treat and multidrug-resistant infections, may also play an important role in combatting the growing global threat of antibiotic resistance."