One of the biggest stories of last week was how Ocuphire Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:OCUP) shares plunged 29% in the week since its latest quarterly results, closing yesterday at US$1.24. Revenues fell badly short of expectations, with revenue of US$1.1m being some 43% below what the analysts had forecast. Statutory losses were in line with forecasts, with Ocuphire Pharma losing US$0.30 a share. Earnings are an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance, look at what the analysts are forecasting for next year, and see if there's been a change in sentiment towards the company. We thought readers would find it interesting to see the analysts latest (statutory) post-earnings forecasts for next year.

See our latest analysis for Ocuphire Pharma

After the latest results, the consensus from Ocuphire Pharma's four analysts is for revenues of US$12.6m in 2024, which would reflect a painful 23% decline in revenue compared to the last year of performance. Losses are forecast to balloon 46% to US$0.79 per share. Before this earnings announcement, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$7.77m and losses of US$1.21 per share in 2024. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, with the analysts making a sizeable increase to their revenue forecasts while also reducing the estimated loss as the business grows towards breakeven.

Despite these upgrades,the analysts have not made any major changes to their price target of US$16.75, implying that their latest estimates don't have a long term impact on what they think the stock is worth. The consensus price target is just an average of individual analyst targets, so - it could be handy to see how wide the range of underlying estimates is. There are some variant perceptions on Ocuphire Pharma, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at US$20.00 and the most bearish at US$11.00 per share. There are definitely some different views on the stock, but the range of estimates is not wide enough as to imply that the situation is unforecastable, in our view.

Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. These estimates imply that revenue is expected to slow, with a forecast annualised decline of 41% by the end of 2024. This indicates a significant reduction from annual growth of 67% over the last three years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in the same industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 10% annually for the foreseeable future. So although its revenues are forecast to shrink, this cloud does not come with a silver lining - Ocuphire Pharma is expected to lag the wider industry.