Vertex strapped for cash (NASDAQ:VRTX)

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:VRTX) sold the rights to its key milestone payments for their hepatitis C drug in development telaprevir, worth up to $95 million. VRTX also raised $155 million by issuing new issuing notes due in 10/31/2012. It sounds like the company needed money fast, and thats exactly the news VRTX came out with next to shock investors as they announced they plan to have a $650 million loss this year. This loss was 26% higher than the $515 million that was originally forcasted.

Kurt Graves, the CCO who is also in charge of strategic development at Vertex, said he will be leaving the company on Friday after his 2 year stay.

With all this bad news came some good. Investors we informand on yesterdays 9/30 conference call that the companies financial strength is now solid due to the decision to monetization the milestone payments. Doing this VRTX avoided the need for further stock dilution or a second note offering. The tone in the rest of the conference call was overall positive as analysts asked questions to VRTX management about the rest of their pipeline.

We expect VRTX to making more big news this month as thy will present new clinical data from study C208 American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD)