| Company: | Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc |
| Ticker Symbol: | ACHN |
| Class Period: | Aug-8-12 to Sep-30-13 |
| Date Filed: | Oct-24-13 |
| Lead Plaintiff Deadline: | Dec-23-13 |
| Court: | District of Connecticut |
| Allegations: | |
The litigation is styled Jiang v. Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., C.A. No. 3:13-cv-01543. The Complaint alleges that during the Class Period, Achillion engaged in a fraudulent scheme to artificially inflate the Company's stock price by disseminating materially false and misleading statements concerning its clinical trials of the drug sovaprevir. The Company falsely represented that sovaprevir, one of the protease inhibitor compounds in its portfolio of oral treatments for the hepatitis C virus, was well-tolerated and had a low potential for drug-drug interactions. Indeed, Achillion touted the results of its clinical tests even though, in July 2013, the United States Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") placed a clinical hold on sovaprevir after elevations in liver enzymes were noted in a phase 1 interaction study.
As recently as September 10, 2013, while the FDA's clinical hold was still in place, the Company's CEO, Milind S. Deshpande, stated in an investor presentation that Achillion would likely "receive a favorable response from the [FDA]" and projected, with a "99.99% confidence interval," that there would be "no overlap between the exposures ... with [] clinical doses versus the exposure ... in the [drug-drug interaction] study." Despite the Company's repeated assurances, on September 27, 2013, Achillion announced that the FDA ultimately concluded that the removal of the clinical hold was not warranted. On this news, shares of Achillion fell $4.30 per share, more than 59.53% on intraday trading, to $2.94 per share on September 30, 2013.
The suit alleges that in ignorance of the false and misleading nature of the statements described in the Complaint, and the deceptive and manipulative devices and contrivances employed by said Defendants, Plaintiff and the other members of the Class relied, to their detriment, on the integrity of the market price of Achillion common stock. Had Plaintiff and the other members of the Class known the truth, they would not have purchased said securities, or would not have purchased them at the inflated prices that were paid.
If you acquired the securities of the defendants during the Class Period you may, no later than the Lead Plaintiff Deadline shown above, request that the Court appoint you as lead plaintiff through counsel of your choice. You may also choose to remain an absent class member. A lead plaintiff must meet certain requirements.
