Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. shares dropped 5.3% in early afternoon trade Wednesday after the company’s chief financial officer said the company would see reduced revenue in the third quarter due to slow sales of new cystic fibrosis drug Orkambi. Slow penetration of the drug in Germany, along with an unanticipated “slowdown” in July and August U.S. refills, “obviously… reduces the revenue that we record,” CFO Ian Smith said at the Morgan Stanley Global Health Care Conference Wednesday, according to the FactSet transcript. Though U.S. patients were taking less of the drug, which Smith blamed on the summer months, the trend is starting to reverse, he said. RBC Capital Markets continued to rate the stock “outperform,” with analyst Michael Yee saying that the slow summer could be a “potential buying opportunity.” Vertex stock dropped 1.7% over the last three months, compared with a 2.7% rise in the S&P 500 .
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