August 4, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Although it’s been a fairly tough year so far for life science stocks, it’s not all gloom and doom. The XBI biotech index showed an increase of 13 percent over the last month compared to 5 percent for the S&P 500. With that in mind, here are four biotech stocks that have a 300 percent upside potential.
Headquartered in Brisbane, California, Aimmune Therapeutics focuses on treatments for peanut and other food allergies. It currently has AR101 in a Phase III trial for peanut allergies that utilizes its platform, Characterized Oral Desensitization Immunotherapy.
Aimmune is currently trading for $12.67 per share. According to Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE), about 15 million people in the U.S. have food allergies and peanut allergy is one of the most common with approximately three million people affected. Wedbush, in its analysis, gives Aimmune a price target of $48 and a Wall Street consensus of $37.75.
Catabasis Pharmaceuticals , located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, utilizes a proprietary SMART linker platform to develop drugs for rare diseases. It currently has a drug, edasalonexent (CAT-1004) for Duchene Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) in a Phase I/II clinical trial. At present, there is no treatment for DMD, which is a fatal disease that mostly affects boys.
The company’s overall focus is on treating inflammatory and metabolic diseases. In addition to CAT-1004, it has CAT-2054, which is in a Phase I trial for hypercholesterolemia, and completed a Phase IIa trial in patients with high triglycerides. It also has CAT-4001 for rare neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Catabasis is currently trading for $5.43 per share. Wedbush gives it a price objective of $17 and the Wall Street consensus is $16.
Pacira Pharmaceuticals , headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, is primarily focused on non-opioid drugs for postsurgical pain. Company is currently trading for $44.17. Wedbush’s price target is $105 while the consensus is $79.67.
Wedbush also observed that Pacira stock has an anchor on it since the FDA had a warning letter over one of its products, but it has since been rescinded, and sales of Exparel appear to be recovering.
United Therapeutics , based in Silver Spring, Maryland, claims that it “develops and commercializes products to address the unmet medical needs of patients with chronic and life-threatening diseases worldwide,” which really doesn’t differentiate it from every other drug company. It does, however, have a number of drug candidates and products, including Remodulin to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), Tyvaso, Adcirca, Orenitram, all for PAH, and Unituxin, to treat tumors.
United Therapeutics is currently trading for $125.63. Wedbush gives it a price target of $229, while the consensus is $129.50. It’s not completely clear why Wedbush is so optimistic about this stock, although it does note that it has two trials, FREEDOM-EV and BEAT that enrolled this year, and data will be out in 2017. It also has a possible new drug application (NDA) for Remodulin as an implantable pump next year as well.
