This Week in Biotech: Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NAVB), Sinovac Biotech Ltd. (SVA) and More

Last, but certainly not least, was this week’s disaster du jour, Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPPI). Analysts had expected Spectrum’s Fusilev, which is a palliative treatment used in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, to bring in around $300 million this year. Even Spectrum, which had been dealing with generic competition for Fusilev, anticipated that a generic shortage would keep revenue for its brand-name drug growing. However, that quickly went up in smoke when Sagent Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:SGNT) announced that it’d be picking up the slack of making generic Fusilev, known as leucovorin. Spectrum responded by lowering its sales forecast to a mere $160 million to $180 million — a 40% to 47% shortfall below the Street’s expectations.Not surprisingly, Spectrum shares were hammered to the tune of 34% on the week.

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The article This Week in Biotech originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Sean Williams.

Fool contributor Sean Williams owns shares of Aeterna Zentaris but has no material interest in any other companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name TMFUltraLong, track every pick he makes under the screen name TrackUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle @TMFUltraLong.

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