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: 

• Revance Therapeutics (RVNC), 237% surge in interest
• Lexicon Pharmaceuticals (LXRX), 180% surge in interest
• Bio-Techne (TECH), 168% surge in interest
• Verastem Oncology (VSTM), 129% surge in interest
• Iovance Biotherapeutics (IOVA), 66% surge in interest

Pipeline and key clinical candidates for these companies:

Revance is a biotechnology company whose aesthetics portfolio includes Daxxify for injection, the RHA Collection of dermal fillers, and OPUL, the "first-of-its-kind Relational Commerce platform for aesthetic practices." Revance has also partnered with Viatris to develop a biosimilar to Botox, which will compete in the existing short-acting neuromodulator marketplace. Revance’s therapeutics pipeline is currently focused on muscle movement disorders including evaluating Daxxify in two debilitating conditions, cervical dystonia and upper limb spasticity.

Lexicon says it is "pioneering the discovery and development of innovative medicines to safely and effectively treat disease." Lexicon has advanced one of these medicines to market and has a "pipeline of promising drug candidates in discovery and clinical and preclinical development in heart failure, neuropathic pain, diabetes and metabolism and other indications," the company states.

Bio-Techne is a developer and manufacturer of purified proteins and reagent solutions – notably cytokines and growth factors, antibodies, immunoassays, biologically active small molecule compounds, tissue culture reagents, T-Cell activation and gene editing technologies. Bio-Techne’s product portfolio also includes protein analysis solutions, sold under the ProteinSimple brand name.

Verastem Oncology is a development-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to the development and commercialization of new medicines to improve the lives of patients diagnosed with cancer. The company’s pipeline is focused on novel small molecule drugs that inhibit critical signaling pathways in cancer that promote cancer cell survival and tumor growth, including RAF/MEK inhibition and focal adhesion kinase inhibition.

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:

June 1

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals announced the pricing of its previously announced underwritten public offering of 23.92M shares of its common stock. The shares of common stock being offered pursuant to the public offering are being offered at a public offering price of $2.60 per share. All of the shares are being offered by Lexicon. The gross proceeds from the public offering are expected to be approximately $62.2M, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses.

Bio-Techne announced that it prevailed on a claim that Miltenyi Biotec B.V. & Co. KG commercialized antibodies it developed based on information obtained by reverse engineering Bio-Techne’s proprietary R&D Systems branded TIGIT and CCR-7 antibodies. Specifically, the Court held "it has been proven that TIGIT and CCR-7 antibodies are the result of reverse engineering of antibodies." In addition to finding that Miltenyi has been marketing and selling these reverse engineered antibodies, the court determined that Bio-Techne is entitled to monetary damages and additional detailed information regarding the scope of Miltenyi’s unlawful reverse engineering activities. Bio-Techne took legal action against Miltenyi at the Regional Court of Cologne, Germany after discovering the variable regions of Miltenyi’s TIGIT and CCR-7 antibodies, including the complementarity determining regions which confer antibody specificity, were almost 100 % identical to the R&D Systems antibodies. This discovery took place following suspicious purchasing activity from Miltenyi for these specific R&D Systems branded antibodies spanning more than a decade. The Court agreed with its appointed expert’s determination that "the probability of obtaining two antibodies, independently of each other, which are identical in the VH and VL domains by independently immunizing two different animals at different times in different locations is vanishingly small."

May 31

Verastem announced that it will effect a 1-for-12 reverse stock split of its issued and outstanding common stock. Verastem’s stockholders approved an amendment to Verastem’s Restated Certificate of Incorporation to effect the reverse stock split at Verastem’s annual meeting of stockholders held on May 15. The reverse stock split is intended to increase the per share trading price of the Verastem’s common stock to ensure Verastem will satisfy the price requirement for continued listing on the Nasdaq Global Market, and potentially attract a broader range of investors. The reverse stock split will become effective on May 31 and the company expects that its common stock will open for trading on June 1 on the Nasdaq Capital Market on a split-adjusted basis under the company’s existing trading symbol "VSTM".

May 26

Iovance Biotherapeutics announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration accepted its Biologics License Application for lifileucel for patients with advanced melanoma. The FDA granted lifileucel Priority Review and assigned November 25, 2023 as the target action date for a decision under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act. The FDA is not currently planning to hold an advisory committee meeting to discuss this application and, after a preliminary review, has not at this time identified any potential review issues. Lifileucel is a TIL therapy intended for patients with advanced melanoma who progressed on or after prior anti-PD-1/L1 therapy and targeted therapy, where applicable. There are no FDA approved therapies in this treatment setting.

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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