Shares of Ocugen Inc. OCGN, +201.14% more than tripled on massive volume Monday, after the biopharmaceutical company working on a treatment for blindness and a potential COVID-19 vaccine announced a direct offering of stock to institutional investors at a 27% premium. The stock led the Nasdaq’s gainers list with a 238.9% rally in afternoon trading, and was the most actively traded on the Nasdaq with volume of 504.7 million shares, which compares with the full-day average of about 63.1 million shares over the past 30 days.
The company said earlier that it entered into agreements with health care-focused institutional investors for the sale of 3 million shares of common stock at $7.65 a share, which was well above Friday’s closing price of $5.25. The stock offering comes about a week after the company entered into an agreement with India-based Bharat Biotech to develop and commercialize Bharat’s Covaxin, an “advanced stage whole-virion inactivated COVID-19 vaccine candidate” for the U.S. market. Covaxin has been granted permission by India’s Central Licensing Authority for restricted use in emergency situations. Ocugen’s stock, which was trading below $1 as recently as Dec. 22, has skyrocketed 6,255.2% over the past three months, while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF IBB, +2.10% has rallied 24.8% and the S&P 500 SPX, +0.74% has gained 11.1%.