August 26 Biotech Update

Market starts the week higher but I do not trust it as there is the old saying that markets never bottom on Fridays. To be fair futures were down a lot and have rallied before the market opened but I remain suspicious of the green open. The ideal scenario for a robust turnaround would be […]

Coverage Continuation- ARVN

Aug 23, by Jason Chew Arvinas is one of the newer names I’ve been covering. The company is developing a new class of drugs with a new modality known as Targeted Protein Degraders, coining the technology PROTAC (Proteolysis Targeting Chimera). PROTACs work in a completely different way from current small molecule drugs. Most of today’s […]

August 23 Biotech Update

So the sector feels a lot worse than the chart indicates. We are right around support at $80 and that seems to have been holding. We are approaching, however, a decision point. We can break below what is support for a leg down or break out of the downward trending making that look like a […]

August 21 Biotech Update

Broadly speaking the sector and market are doing well. Sentiment has been pretty negative and there were some macro concerns. This seems to be easing a bit, so a rally might be in the offing but how many times have we been burning at the start of rallies with some new macro concern jumping to […]

August 20th Biotech Update

So I do not want to spend a lot of time on macro or the sector as it is the same but we do have some really important news to discuss that is both stock and sector important. 1. SRPT received a CRL. This was a surprise both to me and the company. According to […]

Coverage Continuation- ZGNX

Aug 19, 2019 by Jason Chew Zogenix ran into some unwelcome surprise this April when FDA kicked back its ZX008 (Fintepla) NDA with a Refuse to File letter. The two deficiencies cited were the lack of a non-clinical toxicology report and submission of an incorrect clinical dataset. The request for additional toxicology studies was unexpected; management believed […]

August 19th Biotech News

The market seems to be in a good mood to start the week and I would argue it remains macro driven. I think the hope is that central banks and governments are about to undertake a series of actions meant to stimulate the global economy. Of course, these sort of expectations can be like sugar […]

August 16th Biotech Update

So far the week is ending on a positive note but it is early but not surprising that we see some sort of bounce in the market. I sort of wonder how the trading ends the day as it will send a stronger signal than how trading starts. We have seen a lot of macro […]

August 15 Biotech Update

While the macro has been major the past couple of days, the sector specific news has been pretty sparse. I was hoping something interesting would happen to write about but there really is nothing major. It does make it a little easier to trade in that we will be sucked up in the macro maelstrom […]

Coverage Continuation – ZYME

Aug 14, 2019 by Jason Chew Zymeworks is perhaps one of my favorite stocks. The small/mid cap Canadian biotech has expertise in bispecific antibody technology. Bispecifics are an exploding field, now with over 50 antibodies in the clinic. Their flexibility allows for a multitude of applications. Some analysts believe bispecifics will drive growth in the […]

August 13 Biotech News

We are back into the old pattern. Good biotech news that moves the individual stock but has limited read through. We have had a couple of these days where the sector grew stronger as the day went on but that usually required a lessening of the macro concerns. That could be the case today as […]

Coverage Continuation: SAGE

It has been a long time since my last article, but with the forum down, there is a lot to catch up on. My coverage will focus on the eight stocks in my portfolio. These are: SAGE; ZYME; ZGNX; ARVN; AMRN; ARQL; CALA; AXSM. We’ll start with SAGE: Things continue to hum along for Sage […]

August 12th Biotech Update

Another week with another set of macro concerns. I was waiting to see if there would be any interesting biotech news but I guess not. There was some late last week but this morning seems driven by macro (your choice between Argentina and/or Hong Kong and/or China trade). I see little on the horizon that […]

August 9th Biotech Update

It has been 24 hours of surprises culminating in my daughters school bus not showing up this morning but that is the least of the surprises. Interestingly, the broader sector is actually holding up despite the series of negative surprises but let us dive into the news. 1. AMRN is perhaps the biggest surprise. It […]

August 8 Biotech Update

What macro brings down macro can bring up. The sector seems to be trading right in line with the broader markets but hopefully we see some acceleration of the sector given the positive news that needs to be digested. 1. SRPT is lower on the earnings release. The revenues were fine and in line. SRPT […]

August 7 Biotech Update

Are we in the process of bottoming? Perhaps. The sector still cannot get the moves it deserves based on the fundamental news that has come the past couple of weeks. What will be most telling is when the macro fades and market rallies, does the sector outperform? In other words, have people noticed the good […]

August 6 Biotech Update

We tried to get a bounce this morning but it is tepid at best. On the positive side we did get a CNBC “Market in Turmoil” segment, which usually marks a bottom. On the negative, the move has been so fast it does not seem like panic or despair has had time to set into […]

August 5 Biotech Update

We live in a sea of macro right now. Take your pick. China and trade. China currency. China and the protest in Hong Kong. India and Pakistan over Kashimir. Iran seized another tanker in the Middle East. Russia and US existing from a nuclear arms control treaty. This move lower has been fast and violent […]

August 2 Biotech Update

So it looked like yesterday was the day that all the good news was finally going to push the sector higher and we get the China tariffs macro news. Clearly the sector cannot catch a break and all of this good news now runs the risk of being buried in macro issues. There is still […]

July 31 Biotech Update

Well, this would have been sooner but as soon as I got to my office I had a train of people “needing” to talk to me immediately. I did not even have a chance to get coffee. In any case, I have a break from the people and can look at the market. It finally […]