Panacea Biotec share slips 4% after Adar Poonawalla sells entire stake

Panacea Biotec share fell nearly 4 per cent today after Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India, offloaded his entire stake in the company, through an open market transaction.

Share of Panacea Biotec touched an intraday low of Rs 370.80, losing 3.66 per cent on BSE. The stock trades higher than 10 day, 20 day, 50 day, 100 day and 200 day moving averages but lower than 5 day moving averages. It has gained 150.6 per cent in one year and risen 56 per cent since the beginning of this year.

Later, the stock ended 3 per cent lower at Rs 373.40 against the previous close of Rs 384.90. Market cap of the firm fell to Rs 2,287.10 crore on BSE.

As per block deal data available on BSE, Adar Poonawalla sold 31,57,034 shares at Rs 373.85 per share, taking the total deal value to Rs 118.02 crore.

According to the shareholding data for March ended quarter, both Poonawalla and SII were public shareholders in the firm and held 5.15 per cent and 4.98 per cent stake, respectively.

The share touched a 52-week high of Rs 407.20 on April 28, 2021, and a 52-week low of Rs 135.92 on May 22, 2020. Currently, the stock is trading 8.3 percent below its 52-week high and 175 percent above its 52-week low.

Also, the company has instituted a suit before the Hon'ble Delhi High Court seeking to restrain Sanofi Healthcare India Private Limited from marketing a fully liquid hexavalent vaccine that would infringe Company's patent for its fully liquid Whole-Cell Pertussis based fully liquid Hexavalent Vaccine, EasySix.

The suit filed against Sanofi comes at the heels of the Sanofi having received marketing approval for a Whole-Cell Pertussis based Hexavalent vaccine (DTwP-HepB-Hib-IPV) by the Drugs Controller General (India).