February Pharma bets for gambling degenerates
For WSB noobs: pharma stocks usually jump or dive after binary (success/failure) events such as drug trial results coming out or FDA approvals.
The size of the move depends mainly on two things:
- The market cap of the company: for a huge company like JNJ, any event will generate only a tiny move, whereas the value of a penny stock can +10x after a successful event.
- Size of the addressable market: does the drug treat a rare disease or a common one? The larger the size of the market, the larger the move would be.
Drug approvals are a long process that can take years, but in some instances, the FDA grants priority date to certain drugs. These are referred to as PDUFA events.
Here's a list of the ones (with market cap > 1 billion to avoid my post being removed) coming up this month:
I have added what the drug does (from a quick google search) + addressable market size (basically just my intuition, without any data to support):
- 11 Feb 21 $REGN Evinacumab (high cholesterol), addressable market: small
- 15 Feb 21 $GTHX Trilaciclib (designed to improve outcomes of patients who receive chemotherapy), addressable market: large
- 25 Feb 21 $SRPT Casimersen (Duchenne muscular dystrophy), addressable market: small
- 28 Feb 21 $REGN Libtayo (metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma), addressable market: small
- 28 Feb 21 $BPMC Pralsetinib (metastatic RET fusion-positive non-small cell lung cancer), addressable market: small
- 28 Feb 21 $ATNX Oral Paclitaxel (metastatic breast cancer), addressable market: medium
My positions:
I have invested some money only in SRPT and ATNX. In SRPT, because it had a huge drop recently and I hope an approval will trigger a recovery. ATNX because I think the treatment being in the form of a pill is a winner. I haven't researched the rest.
SRPT 100C 3/19 [screenshot]
ATNX 15C 3/19 + Shares [screenshot]
Disclaimer:
As mentioned, these are bets, with odds probably better than 50%. I'm not a financial advisor!