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: 

• Sutro Biopharma (STRO), 1,912% surge in interest
• PTC Therapeutics (PTCT), 477% surge in interest
• Arvinas (ARVN), 168% surge in interest
• Oragenics (OGEN), 128% surge in interest
• Avidity Biosciences (RNA), 120% surge in interest
• Compugen (CGEN), 66% surge in interest

Pipeline and key clinical candidates for these companies:

Sutro Biopharma is a clinical-stage company focused on the discovery and development of precisely designed cancer therapeutics, to transform what science can do for patients. Sutro’s fit-for-purpose technology, including cell-free XpressCF, provides the opportunity for broader patient benefit and an improved patient experience. Sutro has multiple clinical stage candidates, including luveltamab tazevibulin, or luvelta, a registrational-stage folate receptor alpha-targeting ADC in clinical studies.

PTC is a biopharmaceutical company that says it is “focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of clinically differentiated medicines that provide benefits to patients with rare disorders.” The company adds: “PTC’s ability to innovate to identify new therapies and to globally commercialize products is the foundation that drives investment in a robust and diversified pipeline of transformative medicines. PTC’s mission is to provide access to best-in-class treatments for patients who have little to no treatment options.”

Arvinas is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that says it is “dedicated to improving the lives of patients suffering from debilitating and life-threatening diseases through the discovery, development, and commercialization of therapies that degrade disease-causing proteins.” In addition to its preclinical pipeline of PROTAC protein degraders against validated and “undruggable” targets, the company has four investigational clinical-stage programs: vepdegestrant for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic ER+/HER2- breast cancer; ARV-766 and bavdegalutamide for the treatment of men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer; and ARV-102 for the treatment of patients with neurodegenerative disorders.

Oragenics is a development-stage company focused on nasal delivery of pharmaceutical medications including in neurology and fighting infectious diseases including coronaviruses and multidrug-resistant organisms. It’s ONP-002 product candidate is a fully synthetic neurosteroid being developed to treat Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. Its NT-CoV2-1 product candidate is an intranasal vaccine candidate to prevent COVID-19 and variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The NT-CoV2-1 program leverages coronavirus spike protein research licensed from the National Institutes of Health and the National Research Council of Canada with a focus on reducing viral transmission and offering a more patient-friendly intranasal administration.

Avidity Bioscience’s proprietary AOCs – Antibody Oligonucleotide Conjugates – are designed to combine the specificity of monoclonal antibodies with the precision of oligonucleotide therapies to target the root cause of diseases previously untreatable with RNA therapeutics, the company says. Avidity’s advancing and expanding pipeline has three programs in clinical development. AOC 1001 is designed to treat people with myotonic dystrophy type 1 and is currently in Phase 1/2 development with the ongoing MARINA and MARINA-OLE trials. AOC 1020 is designed to treat people living with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy and is currently in Phase 1/2 development with the FORTITUDE trial. AOC 1044 is designed for people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy mutations amenable to exon 44 skipping and is currently in Phase 1/2 development with the EXPLORE44 trial.

Compugen is a clinical-stage drug discovery and development company utilizing a broadly applicable, predictive computational discovery platform to identify novel drug targets and new biological pathways and develop therapeutics in the field of cancer immunotherapy. Recognizing the potential of immuno-oncology to shift the cancer treatment landscape, the company chose to focus on the discovery of new drug targets to extend the reach of cancer immunotherapies to new patient populations.

Recent news on these stocks:

May 22

Oragenics announced it has appointed Dr. William “Frank” Peacock as its Chief Clinical Officer, who will conduct its anticipated Phase II clinical trial for treating concussion in the Emergency Department. Peacock is currently the Vice Chair for Emergency Medicine Research at Baylor College of Medicine and a past Professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.

May 21

Truist analyst Asthika Goonewardene lowered the firm’s price target on Compugen to $4 from $5 but kept a Buy rating on the shares after its Q1 results. The firm noted that it was “dismayed” to learn that Compugen’s efforts to develop COM701+COM902 in a particularly tough indication for immunotherapy – Colorectal cancer with liver metastases – is not conducive of further development, serving as a reminder that while AI is an attractive way to identify potential drug targets, actual drug development is difficult, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Truist adds that the quarter’s silver lining is that Compugen has its engine-derived collaboration to provide near-term milestones and extend the cash runway.

May 20

PTC Therapeutics announced that the European Commission has decided not to adopt the CHMP’s negative opinion of January 24, 2024 on the annual renewal of the conditional marketing authorization of Translarna and has returned the opinion to the CHMP for re-evaluation. As a result, Translarna remains on the market and available for patients in Europe consistent with its current marketing authorization. The EC has asked the CHMP to further consider the totality of evidence, including data from patient registries and real-world evidence, in a revised opinion. “The maintenance of the current authorization of Translarna is a big win for boys and young men with nonsense mutation Duchenne muscular dystrophy in Europe,” said Matthew B. Klein, M.D., CEO PTC Therapeutics. “The efficacy and safety demonstrated in clinical trials and the long-term STRIDE registry support that Translarna fills an otherwise unmet need for nmDMD patients. We look forward to working collaboratively with CHMP on next steps once they are defined.” In addition, the European Medicines Agency has informed PTC that the decision has been taken to consider the Scientific Advisory Group meeting for Translarna held on September 5, 2023, and all the procedural steps that followed, as invalid. Furthermore, the input from the SAG meeting held in September 2023 as well as the meeting held in January 2024 will not be considered by the CHMP in any future evaluation of Translarna. Given the inability to accurately forecast the upside impact of the continued authorization of Translarna in Europe on 2024 revenue, PTC will pause 2024 total revenue guidance at this time. Guidance will be updated at a future date.

May 16

Arvinas and Pfizer (PFE) updated clinical data from a Phase 1b combination cohort evaluating vepdegestrant, an investigational oral PROteolysis TArgeting Chimera, or PROTAC, estrogen receptor – ER – degrader, in combination with palbociclib. After six months of additional follow-up, these data are consistent with data presented at the SABCS in December 2023, and show that vepdegestrant plus palbociclib continue to demonstrate encouraging clinical activity in heavily pre-treated patients with a median of four lines of prior therapy with locally advanced or metastatic ER positive/human epidermal growth factor 2 – HER2 – negative breast cancer. These updated data were presented at the 2024 European Society for Medical Oncology Breast Cancer Annual Congress. Vepdegestrant is an investigational PROTAC ER degrader designed to harness the body’s natural protein disposal system to specifically target and degrade the estrogen receptor. Vepdegestrant is being co-developed by Arvinas and Pfizer. After six months of additional follow-up, clinical benefit rate of 63%, overall response rate of 41.9%, median progression-free survival of 11.2 months, and safety profile of vepdegestrant in combination with palbociclib were consistent with data previously reported at SABCS in December 2023. At the recommended Phase 3 dose of 200 mg vepdegestrant in combination with palbociclib, patients achieved a median progression-free survival of 13.9 months. Across all vepdegestrant dose groups, circulating tumor DNA analyses showed marked reduction in tumor fraction after one treatment cycle, regardless of ESR1 gene mutation status; at the 200 mg vepdegestrant dose, robust on-treatment decreases in mutant ESR1 circulating tumor DNA were sustained through multiple treatment cycles. The safety profile of vepdegestrant plus palbociclib was consistent with what was previously reported.

May 13

Sutro Biopharma reported Q1 EPS of (95c) against a consensus of (92c), and reported Q1 revenue of $13.01M against a consensus of $12.07M. “The Sutro team executed on multiple fronts in the first quarter of 2024, advancing luvelta through the clinic in multiple indications of high unmet need, continuing to progress our pipeline and collaboration programs, and establishing a new licensing relationship with Ipsen. The upfront funding from the Ipsen deal and our recent financing also augmented our strong cash position,” said CEO Bill Newell. “We plan to deliver on important catalysts throughout 2024, reporting on expanded patient data with luvelta in combination with bevacizumab, the initiation of a registrational trial for pediatric patients with a rare form of acute myeloid leukemia and a Phase 2 trial in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We continue to build upon our momentum and are well positioned on our goal to rapidly deliver precisely designed ADCs to patients in need.”

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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.