Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter
February 16, 2021
Fiat Lux
FEATURED TRADE:
(SHORT-SQUEEZE DRAMA: BIOTECH EDITION)
(SRNE), (NVAX), (AZN), (MRNA), (PFE), (GILD), (GME)
Posts
The fuss over GameStop (GME) has aimed the spotlight on several small- and even mid-cap stocks that hold a high level of short interest.
For quite some time now, retail investors have been identifying others with similar qualities as GME: a short interest standing at more than 20% of the total float, a market capitalization above $1 billion, and a stock price of roughly $20 per share or even less.
Now, these traders have turned their attention to the biotech industry and one stock that caught their attention is Sorrento Therapeutics (SRNE).
In 2020, Sorrento was hailed as one of the hottest COVID-19 stocks as it jumped an impressive 135% since the year started.
However, the hype dissipated quickly, with the stock falling almost 50% by August that same year.
The company’s volatility was expected considering Sorrento’s early entry, but delayed progress in the COVID-19 race.
As 2020 rolled out, investors started ditching the stock in favor of other developers like Moderna (MRNA), Pfizer (PFE), BioNTech (BNTX), Novavax (NVAX), and AstraZeneca (AZN).
Come 2021, however, the stock seems to bounce back.
Sorrento’s shares have been climbing since the year started following the company’s encouraging data on COVI-MSC, which is its entry in the race to find a potent COVID-19 treatment.
COVI-MSC works as a stem cell treatment developed for COVID-19 patients suffering from acute respiratory distress.
Based on its report in January, Sorrento disclosed that the first three individuals who went through their COVI-MSC treatment were discharged from the hospital within only a week.
Meanwhile, the fourth patient, the one who needed mechanical ventilation due to deteriorating respiratory condition, experienced rapid improvement of his condition and was discharged from the hospital the night of his third COVI-MSC infusion.
On a more promising note, none of the patients experienced any adverse effect following their COVI-MSC treatment.
Outside its COVID-19 treatment program, this San Diego-based biotechnology company has been working on therapies for cancer, neurodegenerative, autoimmune, and inflammatory conditions.
It has multiple “shots on goal” particularly in the oncology department, with its non-small cell lung cancer treatment Abivertinib as the leading candidate to date.
Sorrento’s pain management pipeline, which is headlined by Ztildo, is ripe for expansion thanks to its strategic collaboration with SCILEX.
The company also has its hands in other high-growth sectors in the biotech world, paying particular attention to non-opioid pain relief and immunotherapy.
These projects indicate that Sorrento is no one-trick pony.
In fact, even if its COVID-19 program falls flat – a very real possibility considering that COVI-MSC still needs to go through multiple trials – Sorrento has several initiatives to fall back on.
With three shots on goal, namely, its COVID-19 program, its oncology platform, and non-opioid pain treatment, Sorrento has ensured that it’s well-positioned for success.
If approved, Sorrento’s current pipeline comprising diagnostic kits and therapies could generate over $2 billion in short-term sales.
At the moment though, Sorrento’s $4.02 billion market capitalization makes it a tiny biotechnology company compared to its competitors.
Given its robust pipeline, it’s evident that Sorrento still needs to boost its capitalization to push through with all the plans.
For context, its most dominant rival in the COVID-19 treatment market is Gilead Sciences (GILD), which has $84.38 billion in market capitalization, rakes in $800 million each quarter from sales of Remdesivir.
Let’s say Sorrento expands to the vaccine market, it still cannot catch up with the leader in that arena, Moderna (MRNA), which has $70.97 billion in market capitalization.
Looking at Sorrento’s performance, this company remains an underappreciated stock loaded with potential.
From a business perspective, Sorrento offers a solid pipeline of candidates that could present promising results to push the stock price up.
At this point, the positive updates on its COVID-19 program can cause the stock price to rise exponentially, putting short sellers looking in an unfortunate position.
Overall, Sorrento has the potential to double in value. However, bear in mind that it still has a long way to go. Hence, this company is best as a long-term investment.
Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter
February 2, 2021
Fiat Lux
FEATURED TRADE:
(2021: GILEAD SCIENCES’ YEAR OF MILESTONES)
(GILD), (NVAX), (JNJ), (MRK)
Stocks are tumbling on the back of substandard vaccine updates, with investors growing more wary of the whole COVID-19 vaccine narrative.
January ended with Novavax (NVAX) announcing that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate is roughly 90% effective, but doesn’t work as well against other more contagious strains in South Africa.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) reported that its candidate is only 66% effective at stopping moderate to severe strains of the coronavirus, but is 100% effective in preventing hospitalizations and even death 28 days after it gets administered.
However, the real kicker is Merck’s (MRK) decision to completely drop out of the COVID-19 vaccine race when both its candidates showed disappointing results in the early stages.
This is disappointing news considering that Merck is one of the biggest vaccine developers in the world today.
Nonetheless, Merck’s still not out of the COVID-19 race yet as it appears to be following the lead of Gilead Sciences (GILD) instead.
That is, it plans to focus on developing COVID-19 treatments in the hopes of benefiting from it the same way Gilead did in the past months.
Since the pandemic started, Gilead has been at the forefront of the fight – so much that its COVID-19 treatment, Remdesivir, is evidently having a major impact on the company’s top line.
In its third-quarter earnings report in 2020, Gilead reported $6.6 billion in total revenue, showing off a 17% jump from its performance during the same period last year.
If you exclude its COVID-19 sales, Gilead would have only earned $5.6 billion, with the increase in its year over year performance changing from 17% to just 2%.
As for its overall performance in 2020, Gilead announced that it’s raising its previous guidance from the $23 billion and $23.35 billion range to be somewhere between $24.3 billion and $24.35 billion.
This new guidance indicates a 10% year over year growth, but without Remdesivir, its product sales would actually show a slight decline compared to 2019.
Outside Remdesivir, Gilead has been active in searching for additional growth drivers.
So far, the most promising segment is its HIV lineup led by its top-selling product, Biktarvy, also known as "the gold standard in HIV treatment."
In the third quarter of 2020, sales of Gilead’s HIV line climbed by 8% to reach $4.5 billion.
While generic competition has entered the market, Biktarvy is expected to continue to gain steam in 2021.
Another catalyst in its HIV line is the drug Lenacapavir, which can either be developed as a twice-a-year injection or a weekly pill.
If successful, Lenacapavir can bring an additional $9 billion in revenue for Gilead.
Aside from HIV, Gilead has also been working toward becoming a leader in the oncology sector.
To achieve this, the company spent $21 billion for the acquisition of Immunomedics.
Specifically, Gilead bought the New Jersey-based company for its new breast cancer treatment, Trodelvy.
Gilead’s massive bet on Trodelvy raised a lot of eyebrows, but the product offers a very real chance for an enormous payoff for its shareholders.
Trodelvy lowers the risk of death among breast cancer patients by an impressive 52% when compared to those who receive standard care.
Annually, Trodelvy is estimated to rake in at least $1.8 billion in revenue for Gilead --- and that’s only for breast cancer application.
Gilead also intends to expand Trodelvy’s application to include more complex fields of oncology and even for some viral diseases.
Beyond its COVID-19 program, Gilead has an impressive portfolio of diverse assets that the company is focused on developing.
It currently has 42 clinical programs queued in its pipeline and at least a handful of these are anticipated to become steady sources of revenue.
As expected, it spent 2020 acquiring the necessary partners for its big picture plans, making 2021 a year of milestones for the company.
Global Market Comments
January 19, 2021
Fiat LuxFeatured Trade:
(WHY THERE’S ANOTHER DOUBLE IN CRISPR THERAPEUTICS)
(CRSP), (BLUE), (EDIT), (NVS), (GILD)
Occasionally, I discover a piece of research from one of my other Mad Hedge publications that is so important that I send it out to everyone immediately.
Recently, a piece from the Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter is one of the instances. It makes the case and provides the numbers as to why Biotech & Healthcare will be one of two dominant sectors to follow for the next decade. It also is a key plank in my argument for a return of a new Golden Age and a second “Roaring Twenties.”
Here it is.
Biotech investors, take note: 2019 was a great year for the industry, but the best is yet to come.
In the final three months of 2019, the biotech sector grew by 32% -- notably outpacing the pharmaceutical industry, which only recorded a 9.5% gain.
However, the biotechnology sector is estimated to grow substantially in 2021 and reach over $775 billion in revenue by 2024 as more and more treatments for previously incurable diseases get discovered.
Looking at all the progress in the biotechnology space, this could even be the year we’d finally discover the cure to many life-threatening and debilitating conditions like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
With all these technological advancements, two revolutionary tools have been overhauling the entire biotechnology and healthcare industry from the ground up: precision medicine and CRISPR. Actually, the impressive growth of the biotechnology industry has been largely attributed to the excitement generated by the gene-editing sector.
While the majority of companies concentrating on the human genome are still in the research phase, the growth of this industry is undeniable.
Here’s tangible proof.
Just 20 years ago, reading all the DNA of a single person cost approximately $3 billion. Now, this price is down to only $1,000. In the future, this number will go even lower at $100. There are now gigantic factories in China sequencing DNA for companies like Ancestry.com and 23andMe.
This is just one example of how the biotechnology industry has grown by leaps and bounds. It’s also the reason behind the surge of CRISPR shares.
In effect, the specialists in this niche, including Crispr Therapeutics (CRSP), Bluebird Bio (BLUE), and Editas Medicine (EDIT), are amplifying their efforts.
Among the specialist companies, CRISPR Therapeutics is considered as one of the frontrunners -- if not the top stock. This is because compared to its rivals, which are still in preclinical phases of development, CRISPR Therapeutics already has two drugs going through Phase 1 trials: CTX001 and CTX110.
The promising results of the company’s research resulted in a 113% rise in shares last year, with the bulk of the surge starting in October. In fact, CRISPR Therapeutics’ performance had been so impressive that its market cap reached $3.4 billion.
CTX001 is created to target patients suffering from genetic blood disorders, specifically sickle-cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia.
Meanwhile, CTX110 is a CAR-T treatment. The process involves the extraction of immune cells from the patient. These are then retrained and later re-introduced to the human body.
CRISPR Therapeutics’ CAR-T treatment is anticipated to be offered at a cheaper price compared to the other CAR-T therapies.
Both Novartis (NVS) and Gilead Sciences (GILD) are pursuing the same treatment. However, the cost of the therapy from the latter two is expected to reach as much as $475,000 for every patient annually.
Apart from CTX001 and CTX110, CRISPR Therapeutics has two more immunology candidates, currently dubbed CTX120 and CTX130.
If both phase trials succeed, these will bring massive home runs for CRISPR Therapeutics, especially since the cancer immunology market is expected to reach $127 billion by 2026. Over the next 10 years, this niche is estimated to reach $25 trillion in sales.
Among the gene-editing treatments under development today, CRISPR is projected to grow tenfold in the number of applications and potentially curing 89% of disease-causing genetic variations by 2026.
Taking this pace into consideration, the valuation for this market is expected to grow from $551 million in 2017 to reach roughly $3.1 billion by 2023 and $6 billion by 2025.
Meanwhile, precision medicine as a whole is estimated to show a significant jump from $48.6 billion in 2018 to $84.6 billion by 2024. In 2028, this market is expected to rake in $216 billion.
Hence, further success with CTX001 and CTX110 along with additional treatments in the drug pipeline would all but guarantee that Crispr Therapeutics could beat the market again in 2021.
To subscribe to the Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter for a bargain $1,500 a year, please click here.
Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter
December 29, 2020
Fiat Lux
FEATURED TRADE:
(BUY BEFORE THE RALLY)
(PFE), (MRNA), (AZN), (MRK), (GILD), (VTRS)
Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter
December 22, 2020
Fiat Lux
FEATURED TRADE:
THE MOST FAMOUS CANCER STOCK YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF
(TRIL), (NVAX), (PFE), (IMMU), (SHOP), (GILD), (ABBV)
Biotechnology stocks have proven time and time again to be excellent growth vehicles for risk-tolerant investors.
Underscoring this claim are companies like COVID-19 vaccine frontrunner Novavax (NVAX), which generated jaw-dropping returns on capital for their investors within an impressively short period.
Now, another biotechnology stock is showing telltale signs of following their footsteps: Trillium Therapeutics (TRIL).
Trillium’s story is a familiar one in the biotechnology industry.
Trading only in the penny stock range back in 2019, the company’s share price practically quadrupled since the start of 2020.
Taking into consideration that this meteoric rise actually happened while COVID-19 was blasting the world to smithereens, it’s hardly surprising that this news didn’t receive much media attention.
Trillium’s shares are currently up by an astounding 1,260% -- and the company still has so much room to grow from here.
For context, Trillium had a market capitalization of $7 million in November 2019. This number skyrocketed to $1.3 billion since its shift to cancer technology.
Although a lot of factors came into play, the key turning point for Trillium was when the company decided to go all-in on its cancer programs.
Ultimately, Trillium’s goal is to challenge chemotherapy.
The move to shutter its lead programs on tumor treatments and instead focus on developing cancer-fighting technology was the gamble of a lifetime for the company.
This gutsy move impressed investors, and Trillium was never the same since then.
Today, Trillium is the No. 1 stock on Canada’s S&P/TSX Composite Index, overtaking its previous leader e-commerce giant Shopify (SHOP) by almost 10-fold.
In the US, Trillium shares rank as the No. 4 best-performing company on the Nasdaq Composite Index.
While its epic stock market rally may have some investors feeling left out, all signs point to further gains in the future even for those who missed the initial boom.
Among the major capitalists of this biotechnology company is giant biopharmaceutical company and COVID-19 vaccine leader Pfizer (PFE), which invested $25 million in Trillium’s common stock.
While this equity stake may seem small in relation to Pfizer’s $212.16 billion market capitalization, this initial show of confidence is hailed as a prelude to an even bigger investment in the future.
So far, the most exciting cancer treatments in Trillium’s pipeline are TTI-621 and TTI-622.
These programs are in the same class of emerging cancer technologies, called CD47-based therapies, that prompted Gilead Sciences’ (GILD) $4.9 billion acquisition of Forty Seven, Inc. in April this year.
Aside from Gilead, AbbVie (ABBV) has also been reported to have invested a huge sum in this technology.
In simplest terms, CD47-based therapies can bypass the “don’t eat me signal” put up by some cancer cells in an effort to evade immune detection.
Thus far, both TTI-621 and TTI-622 have been showing promising results. Trillium recently announced that it will increase the dosage in these programs.
While Trillium leaders have not been specific in terms of being open to an acquisition, their recent statements indicate that they are not completely opposed to one.
It’s either that or a partnership with a company as big or even bigger than Pfizer.
As with all the biotechnology stocks, however, there will always be a risk.
For Trillium, the most evident one is competition.
While it’s true that the company has been recognized as the leader in the CD47 arena, more and more competitors are entering the immuno-oncology space.
Right now, the most obvious rival is Gilead, which added Immunomedics (IMMU) to its arsenal via a $21 billion acquisition deal.
Given the sheer amount of money that Gilead has been spending to practically corner the immuno-oncology market, it’s to be expected that more biopharmaceutical titans will enter the fray.
This is one of the reasons Trillium has been tagged as a prime candidate for a massive acquisition deal soon. So far, Pfizer is considered the most probable suitor.
Despite its astonishing performance this year, Trillium’s market capitalization still remains within the small-cap territory. That’s to be expected since its lead assets are still undergoing trials.
Considering that it is an early-stage biotechnology stock, Trillium does not have much in terms of income.
However, the company does have enough cash to last for a while. At the moment, it has $130 million cash.
With its total expenses of $38.8 million in 2019, I say this could offer the company more than three years of breathing room financially.
But it would be shocking if Trillium’s value won’t enter the large-cap territory (higher than $10 billion) if and when the company’s high-value assets reach the late-stage studies.
The fact that it’s also an attractive acquisition candidate offers incredible incentive to its investors.
Simply put, Trillium’s stock could get as much as 1,000% gain over the coming two to three years, making it an ideal investment for risk-tolerant investors.
Mad Hedge Biotech & Healthcare Letter
December 1, 2020
Fiat Lux
FEATURED TRADE:
(BET LIKE WARREN BUFFETT)
(MRK), (BRK.A), (AAPL), (JPM), (GILD), (PFE), (ABBV)
