Shares of Exact Sciences Corp. EXAS, +7.82% rallied 8.0% in afternoon trading Wednesday, after the molecular diagnostics company said it taking over the selling of its Cologuard at-home colon cancer screening test from Pfizer Inc. PFE, +0.13%, and said it was discussing with Pfizer “material changes” to their promotion agreement. The company said it learned in late August that Pfizer cut the sales positions supporting its business tasked with selling Cologuard, so Exact offered those displaced sales representatives jobs. Exact said it added about 400 sales reps in September, bringing the total to more than 850 sales reps. The company said it expects those reps to be “more productive” than when they were at Pfizer, since they will be fully focused on selling Cologuard, and because Pfizer was not making in-personal sales calls in 41 states because of its COVID-19 policies, which were different than Exact’s policies. Analyst Bruce Jackson at Benchmark reiterated his buy rating and $165 price target on Exact’s stock, saying the disclosed changes were, “Overall, positive for Exact.” The stock has dropped 14.5% over the past three months, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.85% has gained 5.4%.
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