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: 

• Moleculin Biotech (MBRX), 1,288% surge in interest
• Tiziana Life Sciences (TLSA), 1,258% surge in interest
• Codexis (CDXS), 1,020% surge in interest
• Bright Minds Biosciences (DRUG), 865% surge in interest
• Innoviva (INVA), 616% surge in interest

Pipeline and key clinical candidates for these companies:

Moleculin Biotech is focused on the development of a portfolio of drug candidates for the treatment of highly resistant tumors and viruses. The company’s lead program, Annamycin is a next-generation anthracycline designed to avoid multidrug resistance mechanisms with little to no cardiotoxicity. Annamycin is currently in development for the treatment of relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia, or AML, and soft tissue sarcoma lung metastases.

Tiziana Life Sciences is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that says its "innovative nasal approach has the potential to provide an improvement in efficacy as well as safety and tolerability compared to intravenous delivery."  Tiziana’s lead candidate, intranasal foralumab, is the only fully human anti-CD3 mAb, according to the company, which adds that it has "demonstrated a favorable safety profile and clinical response in patients in studies to date."

Codexis says it is leveraging its proprietary CodeEvolver technology platform to "discover, develop and enhance novel, high-performance enzymes and other classes of proteins." Codexis enzymes "solve for real-world challenges associated with small molecule pharmaceuticals manufacturing, nucleic acid synthesis and genomic sequencing, and — as biotherapeutic candidates — they have the potential to treat challenging diseases," the company states.

Bright Minds, which says it is focused on developing novel transformative treatments for neuropsychiatric disorders, epilepsy, and pain, has a portfolio of next-generation serotonin agonists designed to target neurocircuit abnormalities that are responsible for difficult to treat disorders such as resistant epilepsy, treatment resistant depression, PTSD, and pain.

Innoviva is a diversified holding company with a portfolio of royalties and other healthcare assets. Innoviva’s royalty portfolio includes respiratory assets partnered with Glaxo Group Limited, including RELVAR/BREO/ELLIPTA and ANORO/ELLIPTA. Innoviva’s other healthcare assets include infectious disease and critical-care assets stemming from acquisitions of Entasis Therapeutics, including its lead asset sulbactam-durlobactam, and La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company, including GIAPREZA, approved to increase blood pressure in adults with septic or other distributive shock, and XERAVA, for the treatment of complicated intra-abdominal infections in adults.

Recent news on these stocks:

April 20

Tiziana Life Sciences announced its plan to submit an IND for intranasal foralumab in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s Disease in Q2 2023. "Following the FDA feedback from our protocol and development plans from the August 2022 type "B" Pre-IND meeting, Tiziana plans submit its intranasal foralumab protocol and IND for mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease in Q2 2023," stated Gabriele Cerrone, Executive Chairman, Founder and interim Chief Executive Officer of Tiziana. "Tiziana is also seeking $3,000,000 in non-dilutive funding from a prestigious Alzheimer’s foundation to support the Phase 2a trial. It is my expectation that this funding application will be submitted Q2 2023 with a response expected Q3 2023."

April 19

Bright Minds Biosciences announced that the International Searching Authority reviewed its international patent application directed to phenethylamine compounds and issued a Written Opinion indicating that Bright Minds’ core phenethylamine compounds of interest are novel and inventive over the searched prior art. Bright Minds recently filed an international patent application directed at compounds that belong to the phenethylamine class of molecules, which the company believes are potentially best in class compounds with an optimized short half-life, highly potent and extreme selectivity relative to other 5-HT2A agonists in development. Compounds from the company’s 5-HT2A and 5-HT2A/5-HT2C programs are contained in this patent application, including its lead 5-HT2A agonist, BMB 202, as well as other backup and compounds of high interest from both programs. While the Written Opinion is non-binding, the Written Opinion is encouraging news and supports the view that Bright Minds has developed patentable phenethylamine compounds. "We are very pleased with this favorable opinion and believe that it validates our drug discovery capabilities. This is an important first step in protecting our compounds of interest in jurisdictions around the world, as we continue to pursue innovation in the treatment of multiple brain-related disorders," stated Ian McDonald, CEO of Bright Minds.

April 18

Moleculin Biotech announced that "positive" preclinical data regarding the company’s next-generation anthracycline, Annamycin, was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research, or AACR, Annual Meeting 2023. ANN exhibited significantly higher accumulation in the liver parenchyma when compared to DOX, or 6-fold higher AUC values, the company reported. "Researchers observed clear inhibition of the subcutaneous tumor growth after systemic administration of L-ANN," the company stated. "Annamycin has continued to demonstrate in preclinical models promising results in hard-to-treat tumors. We are pleased with the findings from these preclinical models in HCC, the most common type of primary liver cancer that is responsible for more than 12,000 deaths per year in the US. The high antitumor activity seen preclinically with Annamycin is very encouraging and provides validation for expanded studies to assess activity in different tumor liver metastasis models as well as HCC models," commented Walter Klemp, Chairman and CEO of Moleculin.

April 17

Piper Sandler lowered the firm’s price target on Codexis to $14 from $21 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares after taking over coverage of the name. In the midst of a shift away from its heritage small molecule pharma manufacturing business in favor of more scalable opportunities in the life sciences business, and now with its biotherapeutics pipeline emerging as a top priority, the setup for Codexis shares if favorable, the analyst told investors in a research note.

Innoviva announced that the FDA Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee unanimously voted 12-0 in support of approval based on a favorable benefit-risk assessment of sulbactam-durlobactam for the treatment of adults with hospital-acquired bacterial pneumonia and ventilator-associated bacterial pneumonia caused by susceptible strains of Acinetobacter baumannii-calcoaceticus complex. The sulbactam-durlobactam New Drug Application, filed by Entasis Therapeutics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Innoviva, was accepted and granted Priority Review by the FDA in November 2022, with a Prescription Drug User Fee Act, or PDUFA, target action date of May 29, 2023. "The Committee’s unanimous recommendation in favor of sulbactam-durlobactam, the first pathogen-targeted therapy for Acinetobacter, moves us closer to potentially addressing the urgent need for new treatment options for patients with serious and life-threatening infections caused by this pathogen," said David Altarac, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Entasis Therapeutics, a wholly owned subsidary of Innoviva. "We appreciate the Committee’s thoughtful deliberation and strong vote of confidence, and look forward to working with the FDA as it completes its review."

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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.

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