Biotech Alert: Searches spiking for these stocks today

These names in the biotech sector are seeing a substantial increase in search activity today, as determined by InvestingChannel. They include: 

• Evelo Biosciences (EVLO), 521% surge in interest
• Novavax (NVAX), 490% surge in interest
• Iovance Biotherapeutics (IOVA), 345% surge in interest
• Cue Biopharma (CUE), 196% surge in interest
• Dynavax Technologies (DVAX), 193% surge in interest 

Pipeline and key clinical candidates for these companies:

Evelo Biosciences is a clinical stage biotechnology company developing a novel platform of orally delivered medicines acting on the small intestinal axis, SINTAX, with systemic therapeutic effects. The company’s product candidates are pharmaceutical preparations of single strains of microbes or their extracellular vesicles, or EVs. Evelo initially is developing EDP1815 in psoriasis and atopic dermatitis and EDP2939 in psoriasis. “If shown to be effective in inflammatory disease mediated by the Th1, Th2 or Th17 inflammatory pathways, these same investigational medicines could be effective in additional inflammatory diseases, such as psoriatic and other forms of arthritis, asthma, allergy, and inflammatory bowel disease,” the company says.

Novavax says it promotes improved health by discovering, developing and commercializing innovative vaccines to protect against serious infectious diseases. Novavax offers a differentiated vaccine platform that combines a recombinant protein approach, innovative nanoparticle technology and Novavax’s patented Matrix-M adjuvant to enhance the immune response.

Iovance Biotherapeutics is focused on developing and delivering tumor infiltrating lymphocyte, or TIL, therapies for patients with cancer. Its lead late-stage TIL product candidate, lifileucel for metastatic melanoma, “has the potential to become the first approved one-time cell therapy for a solid tumor cancer,” said the company, adding that its TIL platform has “demonstrated promising clinical data across multiple solid tumors.”

Cue Biopharma, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, is developing a novel class of injectable biologics to selectively engage and modulate disease-specific T cells directly within the patient’s body. The company’s proprietary platform, Immuno-STAT, and biologics are “designed to harness the body’s intrinsic immune system as T cell engagers without the need for ex vivo manipulation or broad systemic modulation,” Cue says.

Dynavax is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company that says it is “developing and commercializing innovative vaccines to help protect the world against infectious diseases.” The company has two commercial products, HEPLISAV-B vaccine, which is approved in the U.S., the European Union and Great Britain for the prevention of infection caused by all known subtypes of hepatitis B virus in adults 18 years of age and older, and CpG 1018 adjuvant, currently used in multiple adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccines.

Recent news on these stocks:

July 10

Evelo Biosciences announced that it has entered into a securities purchase agreement with investors in a private placement to sell 11,025,334 shares of its common stock at a purchase price of $2.31 per share, which would result in gross proceeds of approximately $25.5M. The offering is being led by Evelo’s founder, Flagship Pioneering, with participation from other new and existing investors. Evelo intends to use the net proceeds from the private placement to fund the readout of its Phase 2a trial of EDP2939 in moderate psoriasis, to pay down approximately $5M of its existing debt and for general corporate purposes. BMO Capital Markets acted as the sole placement agent for the private placement.

July 6

Novavax said it has been granted full marketing authorization by the European Commission in the European Union for Nuvaxovid. The vaccine is now fully authorized for use as a primary series in individuals aged 12 and older and as a booster dose in adults aged 18 and older for the prevention of COVID-19. Nuvaxovid was originally granted a conditional marketing authorization in the EU for these indications.

July 10

Iovance Biotherapeutics announced that it intends to offer and sell $150M of shares of its common stock, subject to market and other conditions, in an underwritten public offering. Goldman Sachs & Co. and Jefferies are acting as joint lead book-running managers for the offering.

June 26

Oppenheimer assumed coverage of Cue Biopharma with an Outperform rating and $10 price target. There was no change to the firm’s estimates or price target, and Oppenheimer’s rating remains intact.

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About “Biotech Alert”

The Fly will report on a selection of biotech stocks seeing a surge in interest from retail and financial professional investors, based on data from InvestingChannel.

This Fly exclusive recap reveals the biotech stocks that are seeing a spike in searches among the 20-plus million retail and financial professional investors through InvestingChannel’s online financial news media ecosystem.

This increased attention from the investors may be in response to, or advance of, outsized moves for stocks in the biotech sector, which tend to be volatile and prone to sharp swings in share price around binary events such as clinical study results and FDA approvals.