Biotech Alert: Searches spiking for these stocks today

Stay ahead of biotech stocks seeing a surge in interest from retail and financial professional investors with this exclusive recap from The Fly

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

• Jounce Therapeutics (JNCE), 367% surge in interest
• Oncosec Medical (ONCS), 251% surge in interest
• Galera Therapeutics (GRTX), 243% surge in interest
• BioNTech (BNTX), 158% surge in interest
• Iovance Biotherapeutics (IOVA), 143% surge in interest

Pipeline and key clinical candidates for these companies:

Jounce Therapeutics is a clinical-stage immunotherapy company that currently has multiple development stage programs ongoing. Jounce’s highest priority program, JTX-8064, is a LILRB2 receptor antagonist shown to reprogram immune-suppressive tumor associated macrophages to an anti-tumor state in preclinical studies. JTX-8064 is currently being investigated alone and in combination with pimivalimab, Jounce’s internal PD-1 inhibitor, in one monotherapy and eight indication-specific combination therapy cohorts in the Phase 1/2 INNATE trial and is currently enrolling patients with advanced solid tumors in the Phase 2 portion of the study. Jounce’s most advanced product candidate, vopratelimab, is a monoclonal antibody that binds to and activates ICOS, and is currently being studied in the SELECT Phase 2 trial. 

OncoSec Medical is focused on developing intratumoral immunotherapies to stimulate the patient’s immune system to target cancer cells and eradicate disease. OncoSec’s lead immunotherapy investigational product candidate – TAVO, tavokinogene telseplasmid – enables the intratumoral delivery of DNA-based interleukin-12, a naturally occurring protein with immune-stimulating functions. OncoSec’s clinical pipeline is utilizing TAVO as a potential treatment for multiple cancer indications either as a monotherapy or in combination with checkpoint inhibitors; with the latter potentially enabling OncoSec to address a great unmet medical need in oncology: anti-PD-1 non-responders. 

Galera Therapeutics is focused on developing and commercializing a pipeline of therapeutic candidates that have the potential to transform radiotherapy in cancer. Galera’s selective dismutase mimetic product candidate avasopasem manganese, avasopasem, or GC4419, is being evaluated for radiotherapy-induced toxicities. The company’s second product candidate, rucosopasem manganese, rucosopasem, or GC4711, is in clinical-stage development to augment the anti-cancer efficacy of stereotactic body radiation therapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer and locally advanced pancreatic cancer.

BioNTech says it is "pioneering novel therapies for cancer and other serious diseases." BioNTech and its collaborators are developing multiple mRNA vaccine candidates for a range of infectious diseases alongside its oncology pipeline. BioNTech has established a broad set of relationships with multiple global pharmaceutical collaborators, including Genmab (GMAB), Sanofi (SNY), Genentech, a member of the Roche Group (RHHBY), Regeneron (REGN), Genevant, Fosun Pharma, and Pfizer (PFE).

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."

Recent news on these stocks:

March 30

Morgan Stanley named BioNTech as a "Catalyst Driven Idea" ahead of the readout of data from the company’s Phase 2 personalized cancer vaccine, or PCV, study. The firm’s base case expectation is that the combo arm achieves a hazard ratio, or HR, in the range of 0.69 – 0.75 with about a three to four month benefit in mPFS and believes management "could potentially still consider the study successful" in such a scenario given this is a "proof-of-concept" study with limited sample size. However, the firm believes most investors see a hazard ratio less than 0.65 as "a highly meaningful treatment effect" in a scenario where the study achieves statistical significance with HR below 0.65 and greater than five months mPFS benefit the firm would expect the shares to be up 20%-30%. Morgan Stanley has an Equal Weight rating and $150 price target on BioNTech shares.

March 28

OncoSec files to sell 11.66M shares of common stock, and also files to sell common warrants to purchase 11.66M shares of common stock. A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners is acting as sole placement agent.

March 27

Jounce Therapeutics entered into a definitive merger agreement whereby Concentra Biosciences will acquire Jounce for $1.85 in cash per share plus a non-tradeable contingent value right. The $1.85 per share upfront consideration represents a premium of approximately 75% to Jounce’s closing share price immediately prior to the March 14, 2023 public disclosure of Concentra’s acquisition proposal. In conjunction with the merger agreement, Jounce is implementing a workforce reduction of approximately 84% of its employees. This reduction is expected to be completed within the next month and Jounce will incur restructuring costs totaling approximately $6.5M.

Stifel reiterated a Buy rating and $24 price target on Iovance Biotherapeutics following the company’s announcement it has completed its submission of the biologics license application, BLA, for lifileucel in melanoma. Expectations are for the FDA to accept the application for a priority review, which would set the decision date to be in Q4 of 2023, the firm says. Although the situation remains opaque, the firm is optimistic and believes the stock can trade into the mid-teens on approval.

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 15-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.

Keywords: biotech, biotech sector, biotech alert, investingchannel, XBI, SPDR S&P Biotech ETF