Sientra plunges on Q4 earnings miss, clouded outlook

A fourth-quarter earnings miss and the uncertainty around an upcoming FDA advisory panel meeting on breast implants sent Sientra (NSDQ:SIEN) shares down precipitously today. The Santa Barbara, Calif.-based medical aesthetics company’s losses widened 38.1% to -$24.6 million, or 86¢ per share, on sales growth of 71.9% to $19.0 million for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2018, compared with Q4 2017. Analysts on Wall Street were looking for losses of -68¢. Full-year losses were up 29.0% to -$82.6 million, or -$3.25 per share, on sales growth of 86.4% to $68.1 million compared with the prior year, Sientra said. Breast implant sales are expected to grow by at least 25% to $26 million this year, chairman & CEO Jeff Nugent said, taking into account softness during the first and second quarters around the risk that the March 25 meeting of the FDA’s General & Plastic Surgery Devices advisory panel will recommend restrictions on textured breast implants. Although the FDA’s warning about the risk of a form of lymphoma associated with textured implants goes back at least two years, recent developments have pushed the issue into the spotlight. For years the safety watchdog’s “summary reporting” policy allowed medical device manufacturers to lump hundreds of adverse event reports into a single filing, meaning that the reported rate of bad outcomes – including deaths – was kept artificially low. From 2008 to 2015 there were only 200 reports ...
Source: Mass Device - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Cosmetic/Aesthetic MassDevice Earnings Roundup Wall Street Beat Women's Health Sientra Source Type: news