3 Biotech Stocks That Exploded in 2017
It’s been a good year so far for stocks, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 25 percent and the S&P 500 up 20 percent. However, three biotech stocks have quadrupled this year. Rick Duprey, writing for The Motley Fool, takes a look.
Based in San Francisco, Nektar focuses on developing drugs for cancer, auto-immune diseases and chronic pain. On Nov. 11, the company, along with Bristol-Myers Squibb, announced positive data from a Phase I/II trial of Nektar’s NKTR-214 with Bristol-Myers’ Opdivo across several tumor types.
But Duprey indicates that the reason the company’s stock has done so well this year is largely because in July, Eli Lilly signed a collaboration deal with Nektar for NKTR-358, a therapy that increases T-cell production for treatments for several autoimmune diseases.
Duprey writes, “Coupled with thus-far positive last-stage clinical results for other therapies and the potential for as much as $250 million more from Lilly for further advances with NKTR-358, Nektar Therapeutics could have a very bright future.”
Nektar stock is currently trading for $51.40.
Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Esperion is focused on developing non-statin therapies for cholesterol. On Nov. 6, the company launched a Phase III clinical trial of its bempedoic acid/ezetimibe combination pill in patients with hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases (ASCVD) and/or heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH).
The company’s stock has gained about 370 percent this year. Duprey writes, “Favorable results for a triple combination of bempedoic acid, Zetia, and Lipitor also helped push the biotech higher. In August, Esperion reported results from a mid-stage study that saw LDL cholesterol levels fall 64 percent from baseline levels among patients treated for six weeks with its triple-drug combo, compared with patients given nothing but a placebo.”
The company is hoping the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will accepts its New Drug Application (NDA) for the treatment based on the trial, with possible approval in 2019.
Esperion Therapeutics stock is currently trading for $60.63.
Headquartered in Richmond, California, Sangamo focuses on developing therapies using genome editing techniques. On Nov. 15, the company treated its first patient in the Phase I/II trial of SB-913, an investigational in vivo genome editing therapy for individuals with mucopolysaccharidosis type II (MPS II), also known as Hunter syndrome.
The company’s stock gained 377 percent this year. Duprey writes, “Sangamo is using an older gene-editing tool, in which one inserts, deletes, or replaces DNA in a cell or organism. Sangamo’s tool, called zinc finger nucleases, or ZFN, addresses rare bleeding disorders. While there are other more advanced gene-editing tools out there, Sangamo benefits because it has the most advanced pipeline of any of the biotechs focused on gene editing. Earlier this year, Pfizer agreed to pay Sangamo $70 million up front for rights to SB-525, a hemophilia candidate that earned a fast-track designation from the FDA.”
Sangamo Therapeutics stock is currently trading for $16.40.