ImmunoGen (NASDAQ:IMGN) is a clinical stage biotech company that is focused on cancer therapeutics. It has developed an antibody-drug conjugate or “ADC” technology which is already being used in an approved and marketed product and is also being developed for use in a few other clinical stage candidates that are part of ImmunoGen’s current pipeline. The lead pipeline candidate for this company is called “Mirvetuximab Soravtansine”. This will be tested as an ovarian cancer treatment in Phase 3 trials which are expected to commence very soon. Obviously, this company has faced some setbacks in 2016, and that, along with tax loss selling pressure, is why the stock is trading for less than $2 per share. However, as seasoned investors know, setbacks can create significant buying opportunities, especially when it pertains to the biotech sector. Clinical stage biotech companies and their stocks are fueled by hope and cash and ImmunoGen has both of these. I believe there is a strategic opportunity for investors who buy this stock now, because it appears ripe for a potential “January Effect” rally as tax loss selling ends soon. It also appears poised for a short squeeze rally in the very near term. Furthermore, this stock appears to have longer term upside due to a number of high potential pipeline candidates and partnership deals with a few leading pharmaceutical and biotech giants. Let’s take a closer look at the potential downside risks (which I believe are very limited at this time) as well as a number of reasons why this stock is a strong buy now:
Best Biotech Stocks To Watch For 2018: ArQule Inc.(ARQL)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Paul Ausick]
ArQule Inc. (NASDAQ: ARQL) dropped about 23% Friday, to post a new 52-week low of $1.13 after closing at $1.47 on Thursday. The stock’s 52-week high is $2.17. Volume was about 15 times the daily average of around 150,000 shares. The biopharmaceutical company said this morning that a phase 3 trial of a cancer drug did not meet the primary endpoint of improving overall survival.
Best Biotech Stocks To Watch For 2018: Biogen Idec Inc(BIIB)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Chris Lange]
Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB) had its short interest increase to 2.63 million shares from the previous 2.36 million. The stock closed Friday at $305.20, within a 52-week range of $223.02 to $333.65.
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Biogen (BIIB) tumbled to the bottom of the S&P 500 today after getting cut by two analysts.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Biogen dropped 4.7% to $278.96 at 4:19 p.m. today, while the S&P 500 declined 0.2% to 2,381.38.
Leerinks Geoffrey Porges cited the “slower than expected ramp for Spinraza” in cutting Biogen to Market Perform from Outperform, while Morgan Stanly’s Matthew Harrison wrote that his decision to cut Biogen to Market Weight from Overweight was “not a downside call, but a timing call.”
Biogen’s market capitalization fell to $60.2 billion today from $63.2 billion yesterday. It reported net income of $3.7 billion on sales of $10.2 billion in 2016.
Barron’s Teresa Rivas recommended buying Biogen in December after the company released positive trial data on its Alzheimer’s drug.
- [By WWW.THESTREET.COM]
Breakups have the potential to create a lot of value. Just look at what Biogen (BIIB) did with its hemophilia franchise. Spun out as Bioverativ (BIVV) , shares started trading earlier this year. The stock has climbed some 23% on seemingly no news, Cramer noted.
Best Biotech Stocks To Watch For 2018: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc.(ALNY)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Yesterday, after markets closed, it was announced that US Federal District Court Judge Sue Robinson ruled to issue a permanent injunction against Praluent, the PCSK9 mAb for hypercholesterolemia from partners Regeneron and Sanofi, due to infringement of patents from Amgen. The court has imposed a 30-day suspension (stay) on the injunction to allow for settlement or appeal of the District Court decision. Sanofi and Regeneron have announced their intent to appeal the ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). The injunction decision is consistent with our counter-consensus published views communicated on 25 January 2016 (“Downgrade to Sell on evidence of likely infringement of Amgen’s PCSK9 patents”) and subsequently. Based on consultation with expert legal counsel, we now put >75% probability Amgen will prevail on appeal and/or Praluent is ultimately removed from the US market, and/or Amgen achieves a settlement substantially in its favor. We currently model $3.3 bn in non-risk-adjusted 2022E US revenues for Praluent, while consensus models $1.2 bn in 2022E US revenues. We reiterate our view from 25 January 2016 to preferentially own Amgen, The Medicines Company (MDCO) (Buy), and Alnylam (ALNY) (Buy) over Regeneron for exposure to PCSK9 inhibitor market dynamics as outcomes trials approach.
- [By Brian Orelli]
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY) jumped as much as 14.5% today after announcing earnings after the bell yesterday. As a development-stage biotech, it wasn’t the revenue or the earnings that caused the spike, but the progression of Allnylam’s pipeline.
- [By Cory Renauer]
Treating diseases that have a genetic component by altering the expression of the responsible genes is a promising new field of medicine, but it has been much less straightforward than biopharmaceutical companies had expected. Two contenders in this area, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY) and Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IONS), saw a mix of setbacks and success in 2016.
- [By Lisa Levin]
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALNY) shares shot up 53 percent to $114.87 after the company impressed investors with encouraging data from a phase 3 clinical trial. Alnylam, a company dedicated towards treating a wide range of debilitating diseases through ribonucleic acid (RNA) interference (RNAi) therapeutics, said after Tuesday's market close that a phase 3 study called APOLLO met its primary efficacy endpoint and all secondary endpoints.
- [By Chris Dier-Scalise]
On Thursday, the Vetr crowd downgraded Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALNY) from 4.5 stars (Strong Buy), which was issued two days ago, to 3.5 stars (Hold). Crowd sentiment for Alnylam at the time of the downgrade was edging positive, with 66 percent of Vetr user rating bullish.
Best Biotech Stocks To Watch For 2018: ARIAD Pharmaceuticals Inc.(ARIA)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Lisa Levin]
Healthcare shares gained around 0.73 percent in trading on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARIA), and VCA Inc (NASDAQ: WOOF).
Best Biotech Stocks To Watch For 2018: Medivation Inc.(MDVN)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Monica Gerson]
Benzinga's newsdesk monitors options activity to notice unusual patterns. These large volume (and often out of the money) trades were initially published intraday in Benzinga Professional . These trades were placed during Friday's regular session.
PACCAR Inc (NASDAQ: PCAR) Aug16 52.5 Puts: 10000 @ ASK $1.70: 10k traded vs 335 OI: Earnings 7/26 $54.94 Ref
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: REGN) Jul16 345 Puts: 949 @ ASK $8.70: 1003 traded vs 55 OI: Earnings 8/2 $360.20 Ref
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) Fri 6/24 47.0 Puts (Wkly) Sweep: 689 @ ASK $1.12: 3758 traded vs 136 OI: Earnings 8/4 $46.69 Ref
Medivation Inc (NASDAQ: MDVN) Sep16 55.0 Puts: 4000 @ Above Ask! $3.40: 5303 traded vs 716 OI: Earnings 8/4 $59.44 Ref
Expeditors International of Washington (NASDAQ: EXPD) Aug16 47.0 Puts Sweep: 950 @ ASK $1.35: 973 traded vs 381 OI: Earnings 8/2 $48.15 Ref
Posted-In: Huge Put PurchasesNews Options Markets
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Macro considerations have continued to weigh on stocks whenever they’ve shown signs of life and consensus estimates for many of the large cap companies have been declining. With the sector’s underperformance, the delta in the average PEG ratio for biotech growth companies (excluding Medivation (MDVN)) compared to non-biotech growth companies is slightly wider than it’s been for most of the year. As such, we remain constructive on the sector. That said, while valuations are attractive on a relative basis, there remains some uncertainty for the group and we would not be surprised to see the volatility continue…
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Well, it looks like Medivation (MDVN) now has five suitors after reports that Amgen (AMGN) is joining Pfizer (PFE), Sanofi (SNY), AstraZeneca (AZN) and Novartis (NVS) in considering a bid. Maxim’s Jason Kolbert and Jason McCarthy offer their thoughts:
Medivation reports tonight at 4:30pm…
We expect the focus to be on the recent proposals from Sanofi (SNY $38.75- NR); Pfizer (PFE $33.40 -NR), AstraZeneca (AZN $28.26-NR) and just today, Amgen (AMGN – $154.18 – NR)…
Medivation is returning to new highs as suitors line up to make acquisition bids. In this scenario what is the right discount rate for modeling purposes?
We believe our model for Xtandi revenues is good, therefore we review our risk rating and determine the following: 30% = $47 15% = $76 10% = $99
With Medivation’s board having now said No to anything less than $65 per share, it suggests to us that the stability and predictability of Xtandi’s revenues is greater than we thought, the risk is lower. Our intermediate risk rating is 15% or $76 fair value.
Shares of Medivation rose 0.3% to $59.22 today, while Pfizer gained 0.5% to $33.56, Sanofi fell 0.5% to $39.07, AstraZeneca dropped 0.6% to $39.07, Novartis declined 0.3% to $74.12, and Amgen ticked up 0.1% to $154.25.
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Last night, Bloomberg reported that Sanofi (SNY) had made a bid for Medivation (MDVN) but had been rebuffed, while noting that other companies–perhaps Gilead Sciences (GILD), Amgen (AMGN) or AstraZeneca (AZN)?–were also on the prowl. SunTrust Robinson Humphrey’s Peter Lawson explains why Medivation might be biotech’s most wanted:
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Reports suggest that Gilead Sciences (GILD) and Celgene (CELG) have joined the bidding process forMedivation (MDVN), one that already includes (maybe) Amgen (AMGN), and of course Sanofi (SNY), which is trying to throw out Medivation’s board. Of the three biotech giants, Citigroup’s Robyn Karnauskas and team argue that Amgen is best positioned to win the battle. They explain why:
- [By Ben Levisohn]
RBC’s Simos Simeonidis and Matthew Eckler try to find the right comparison for Pfizer’s (PFE) purchase of Medivation (MDVN):
Scott Eisen/Bloomberg News
We were obviously wrong with our Sector Perform rating: while we knew an M&A transaction was definitely a good possibility, we just could not get to this level of valuation using a realistic Xtandi model and thus could not recommend the stock. The only way for us to get to $81.50 (or even to $60-$70/share) would have been to assign very significant value to talazoparib. And we could not do that given the amount of available clinical evidence.Medivation shareholders who held on to their shares past the $50′s, did just that, were proven right and are now rewarded for it, since they believed that someone would be willing to pay for this asset just months ahead of Phase III data. The key question is why would a company be willing to part with what they claim/think may be a multibillion dollar drug that works in multiple cancers. We believe the obvious answer is because they’re smart and understand drug development risk better than most. We’ll know in a matter of months whether Pfizer/Medivation is like Amgen (AMGN)-Onyx (carfilzomib) or not.
