Nobody wants to get the flu. It’s a sure recipe for spending at least a day feeling awful and getting nothing accomplished. That’s likely a big chunk of why SAB Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ:SABS) blasted up nearly 39% at the time of writing. It’s got a very exciting new development on hand to fight the flu, and that will likely give it one monster of a customer base.
The big news for SAB Biotherapeutics, and by extension, pretty much all of humanity, is that the FDA offered Breakthrough Therapy designation to one of SAB’s latest drugs. It’s known as SAB-176, and it’s an “influenza immunotherapy candidate.” Designed for “post-exposure prophylaxis” and intended for use in “high-risk individuals” like those with compromised immune systems and such.
While the use cases for SAB-176 might seem a little limited, thanks to that “high-risk individuals” designation, that might prove more temporary than anyone really expected. Precision Vaccinations noted that the Breakthrough Therapy designation comes with some implicit points. For instance, SAB-176 targets multiple “epitopes,” or proteins to which individual antibodies bond. That gives it a lot more versatility than a monoclonal antibody treatment, which only goes after one. That also allows SAB-176 to target mutant strains and, ultimately, provide better results.
A look at the last five days of trading for SAB Biotherapeutics suggests an unexpected trend. It was already trending upward before the major boost of Breakthrough Therapy designation hit. SAB already gained substantially back when SAB-176 landed Fast Track status, but now, it’s even farther along. Though it lost most of the gains from earlier in the day, the end result is still impressive.
