Biden vs Biopharmaceutical industry: “March in on Patents”..
https://x.com/PeterKolchinsky/status/1732852724675273103?s=2
Will the Administration take back licensing rights with government funded research to control drug prices?
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ASH this past week.
Update-3 JY 8- 10:40a….Biotech movers in early trading: CRSP, NTLA, PACB, TXG, VCYT. ARKG up approaching $30 handle; XBI holding $80 handle.
FDA approves genome edited cell therapy for Treatment of Sickle Cell Disease. CRSP VRTX
- Jobs report in Goldilocks mode with 199k non-farm payroll gains,, wages decelerating, friendly to market. Any cuts many months away. Recession less likely.
- IJR, IWM up about 1%.
- S&P , NAZ flat
- ABBV holding at $149 a good tape.
- new buys TXG and TWST up today,.
Update-2 12/6 ...Abbvie to buy Cerevel for $8.7B.
Update 12/7…Abbott to buy Cerevel to Transform Neuroscience Pipeline. This deal can be very bullish for biotech because it brings more focus to the value of clinical stage assets. Long ABBV,CERE.
Can’t remember a major acquisition that popped so fast prior to pivotal Phase3 data; ABBV/CERE.
- Phase 3 clinical data on lead Cerevel product coming Monday am DEC 11.
Update-1 12/5- Strength comes back to MEGA-Tech stocks: AAPL, AMZN, MSFT, NVDA, TSLA; XBI flat at $78.80, IBB holds $122.90. But a lot of withn day volatility.
- JNJ forecast 5-6% sales growth for 2024 in re-structured Company with goal mod $57B in drug sales but needing M&A.
- Cerevel (CERE) tacked on another 11.9% gain to close at $35.59 as investors discover a hot new mid-cap in the neuroscience space. Stay tuned next Monday am when the Company release its Phase 3 data for its Parkinson’s Drug.
- A few small caps show gains: GERN, KRTX, MDGL.
- EVH declines 9% on potential dilution with a $350M stock offering.
- Altimmune (ALT) gains 11.66% on Phase 2 for a obesity drug.
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Can Small Cap Biotech Stocks Continue to Run?
- Momentum is still strong for most SMID biotech stocks.
- Innovation driving market gains with some unique molecules and technologies. e.g. Obesity drugs
- A bit of rotation as money trickles out of “Magnificent Seven”and IT stocks?
Over the past 4 weeks we have seen a nice run in small cap, speculative biotech stocks. This coincided with the pause in interest rates and expectations of the seasonal year-end rally. Large cap biopharma stocks have had slower gains but deals are beginning to perk up as opportunities arise. We have tracked this trend with the equal weighted XBI and the model is intact. Here is a partial list of SMID stocks that we expected to participate in this trading rally. We would hope that some of these stocks would became long term winners in your portfolio. Some of the strongest interest has been shown in specific therapeutic areas ; gene editing, CRISPR, ophthalmology, oncology and. neuroscience. But most SMID stocks are 15-20% up from their October lows. Most of these stocks are well known to biotech insiders and traders hence show strong momentum.
Here is our updated list with recent prices shown in last column over past 4 weeks:
Final prices up dated at end of week.
| P 1/20/23 | % Perf | 2/4/23 | 11/18/23 | Perf | 12/4/23 | ||||||
| Company | Ticker | $ | P | % week | P | 4 wks | YTD % | REC | P | ||
| Acumen Therap | ABOS | 5.29 | 2.28 | -40.62 | -57.78 | 1.5 | 2.69 | ||||
| Caribou Biosci | CRBU | NEW | 20.55 | 5.22 | 20.55 | -16.88 | 1.8 | 5.81 | |||
| CRSPR Therap | CRSP | 49.61 | -25 | 55.27 | 4.72 | 67.89 | 55.5 | 67.01 | 2.3 | 71.51 | |
| Cryoport | CYRX | 21.75 | -42.34 | 25.24 | 9.41 | 13.62 | 8.35 | -21.5 | 2.3 | 15.64 | |
| Evolent Health | EVH | 30.83 | 13.74 | 31.96 | 2.21 | 29.33 | 3.71 | 4.45 | 1.7 | 29.34 | |
| Geron | GERN | 3.19 | 9.24 | 3.22 | 3.59 | 1.97 | 6.49 | -18.6 | 1.5 | 1.86 | |
| Hologic | HOLX | 79.66 | 22.41 | 84.68 | 2.28 | 71.87 | 4.16 | -3.93 | 2.4 | 70.58 | |
| Immatics | IMTX | NEW | 9.3 | 8.68 | -13.11 | -0.34 | 1.5 | 9.19 | |||
| Pacific Biosci | PACB | 11.29 | 55.68 | 11.58 | -1.7 | 8.4 | 2.31 | 2.69 | 2.2 | 8.92 | |
| Quidel/Ortho | QDEL | 88.13 | -11.56 | 89.7 | 3.93 | 66.25 | -4.46 | -22.67 | 2 | 68.74 | |
| Supernus | SUPN | 40.3 | 12.3 | 41.61 | 2.29 | 27.43 | 5.7 | -23 | 2 | 28.11 | |
| Twist Biosci | TWST | NEW | 2.2 | 25.59 | |||||||
| 10x Genomics | TXG | NEW | 47.84 | 42.17 | 0.76 | 15.72 | 2.3 | 46.29 | |||
| Vericel | VCEL | NEW | 31 | 36.58 | 2.55 | 38.88 | 1.5 | 36.02 | |||
| Veracyte | VCYT | 24.89 | 39.43 | 26.67 | 2.46 | 25.25 | 17.33 | 6.41 | 2.1 | 26.07 | |
| SPDR Biotech | XBI | 86.99 | 14.75 | 90.39 | 1.12 | 71.66 | 3.36 | -12.46 | n/a | 79.15 | |
| wildcard | |||||||||||
| ArkGenomics | ARKG | NEW | 35.28 | 27.57 | 7.07 | -2.34 | 29.19 | ||||
| 11/18/23 | 5 yr | ||||||||||
| iShares CoreS&P | IJR | 96.18 | 2.4 | 1.63 | 21.58 | 100.34 | |||||
| iShares Russell | IWM | 178.29 | 1.91 | 2.25 | 17.34 | 186.88 | |||||
| iShares BIO | IBB | 118.1 | -3.31 | -10 | 12.42 | 123.69 | |||||
| NASDAQ-100 | QQQ | 386.04 | 4.85 | 45 | 35.54 | 386.32 | |||||
| HealthcareSPDR | XLV | 128.25 | -2.09 | -5.59 | 39.34 | 132.08 | |||||
| T.RowePrice | PRHSX | 85.22 | -2.08 | -5.12 | 9.95 | 88..01 | |||||
| iShares MED Dev | IHI | 48.67 | 5.41 | 38.17 | 50.80 | ||||||
Movers and News:
- Roche ADR (RHBBY was up 2.8% to $35 as dealmaking in obesity space boosts stock. Buys Carmot Therapeutics for $3.1B. Long.
- Cerevel Therapeutics (CERE) a neuroscience Company, soars over 17% on anticipation of Phase 3 data on Parkinson”s drug next Monday.We added to our small position. Stock was up 20% today (not on list). Recently raised $499M. Four other drugs are in the Cerevel Pipeline
- ABBV, MRK, PFE in green today. All longs
- Gene therapy stocks strong: BMRN, BLUE, CRSP, EDIT, SLDB.
- Pulse Biosciences Files 510k for treatment of atrial fibrillation, stock up12%.
- Bought a little Twist Bioscience (TWST)at $25.