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: 

• BridgeBio Pharma (BBIO), 185% surge in interest
• Replimune Group (REPL), 96% surge in interest
• Sage Therapeutics (SAGE), 89% surge in interest
• Editas Medicine (EDIT), 89% surge in interest
• Outlook Therapeutics (OTLK), 77% surge in interest

Pipeline and key clinical candidates for these companies:

BridgeBio Pharma is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company founded to discover, create, test and deliver transformative medicines to treat patients who suffer from genetic diseases and cancers with clear genetic drivers. BridgeBio’s pipeline of development programs ranges from early science to advanced clinical trials, the company has stated.

Replimune Group is focused on the development of novel tumor-directed oncolytic immunotherapies. Replimune’s proprietary RPx platform is based on a HSV-1 backbone with payloads added to maximize immunogenic cell death and the induction of a systemic anti-tumor immune response. The RPx platform’s dual local and systemic mechanism of action is "expected to be synergistic with most established and experimental cancer treatment modalities, and, with an attractive safety profile the RPx platform has the versatility to be developed alone or combined with a variety of other treatment options," the company stated.

Sage Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company "fearlessly leading the way to create a world with better brain health." The company’s mission is to "pioneer solutions to deliver life-changing brain health medicines, so every person can thrive," Sage has stated.

Editas Medicine is a clinical stage genome editing company focused on CRISPR/Cas9 and CRISPR/Cas12a genome editing systems with an aim to discover, develop, manufacture, and commercialize transformative, durable, precision genomic medicines for a broad class of diseases. Editas Medicine is the exclusive licensee of Broad Institute’s and Harvard University’s Cas9 patent estates and Broad Institute’s Cas12a patent estate for human medicines.

Outlook Therapeutics is working to develop and launch ONS-5010, or Lytenava, as the first FDA-approved ophthalmic formulation of bevacizumab for use in retinal indications, including wet AMD, DME and BRVO. The FDA accepted Outlook Therapeutics’ BLA submission for ONS-5010 to treat wet AMD with a PDUFA goal date of August 29, 2023. If ONS-5010 ophthalmic bevacizumab is approved, Outlook Therapeutics expects to commercialize it as the first and only FDA-approved ophthalmic formulation of bevacizumab for use in treating retinal diseases in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Japan, and other markets.

Recent news on these stocks:

June 9

Editas Medicine announced "positive" initial safety and efficacy data from the first four patients with sickle cell disease, or SCD, treated with EDIT-301 in the RUBY trial and from the first transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia patient treated in the EdiTHAL trial. The RUBY trial data will be presented in an oral presentation at European Hematology Association, or EHA, Hybrid Congress in Frankfurt, Germany, and via live stream on Saturday, June 10, the company noted. Editas Medicine will present the RUBY trial data and the EdiTHAL trial data on Monday, June 12, at 8 a.m. ET in a company-sponsored webinar. "In the RUBY trial, Patients 1 and 2 reached normal hemoglobin levels five months post-treatment with EDIT-301, and both patients have maintained a normal hemoglobin level at ten- and six-month follow-up, respectively. Additionally, each of these patients has seen fetal hemoglobin levels of greater than 40% persist during the same time frame. Patients 3 and 4 in the RUBY trial saw increases in total hemoglobin and fetal hemoglobin at three and two months of follow up, respectively, that follow similar trajectories as those seen in the first two patients. All four treated RUBY patients are also free of vaso-occlusive events since infusion. In the EdiTHAL trial, the first patient demonstrated successful neutrophil and platelet engraftment, and, at one and a half months post-infusion, the patient’s response resembles that of the first four RUBY patients. EDIT-301 was well-tolerated and demonstrated a safety profile consistent with myeloablative conditioning with busulfan and autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant by the four patients in the RUBY trial and the first patient in the EdiTHAL trial. After EDIT-301 infusion, no serious adverse events occurred, and no adverse events reported were related to treatment with EDIT-301," the company reported.

June 8

BridgeBio Pharma announced that the updated six month results from Cohort 5 in PROPEL2, a Phase 2 trial of the investigational therapy, infigratinib in children with achondroplasia will be featured in an oral presentation at the Endocrine Society 2023 Annual Conference, taking place on June 15-18. At ENDO 2023, BridgeBio will also present additional data from its achondroplasia program and nonclinical results from studies in hypochondroplasia. Furthermore, the company will share updates from its autosomal dominant hypocalcemia type 1 program, including 18 month data from its ongoing Phase 2 study of encaleret in ADH1 and its sponsored hypoparathyroidism genetic testing program.

June 6

Replimune Group announced initial data from ARTACUS, a Phase 1/2 trial evaluating RP1 for the treatment of cutaneous malignancies in patients who have had a kidney, liver, heart, lung, and/or a hematopoietic cell transplant. This data from the ARTACUS trial will be presented at the ATC 2023 Meeting being held in San Diego. "Cutaneous cancer represents the most common post-transplant malignancy in highly immuno-compromised solid organ transplant patients. The challenge treating this high-risk population is that the use of anti-PD1 therapies can lead to organ transplant rejection in these patients," said Robert Coffin, President and Chief Research & Development Officer of Replimune. ARTACUS is Replimune’s multicenter, open-label, 2-part Phase 1b/2 study evaluating RP1 for the treatment of locally advanced or metastatic cutaneous malignancies in solid organ transplant recipients. This initial analysis includes kidney transplant recipients. This is the first clinical trial assessing single-agent RP1 in immunocompromised patients. No immune-mediated adverse events or evidence of allograft rejection were observed. RP1 monotherapy was well tolerated, and the safety profile was similar to non-immunocompromised patients with advanced skin cancers. RP1 monotherapy showed clear anti-tumor activity, with a preliminary overall response rate for the 11 evaluable patients with cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and Merkel cell carcinoma of 27.3%, with 3 patients achieving a confirmed complete response. One of the non-evaluable patients also showed a clear reduction in tumor size before death due to COVID-19-related pneumonia at 7 weeks following initiation of RP1.

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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