With great help from baz22, on behalf of the Cara Community I compiled a list of 25 Biotech companies that we believe have promise for clinicians as well as for investors. Feel free to comment in the community discussion part of this website.
If you plan to invest, be prepared to do the homework and you are on your own. Try to take entry positions only when prices appear to be attractive. Just remember my mantra: the market is a game that will be playing you.
This list of 25 companies could easily have been 50 companies. But since I will be monitoring them daily for purposes of trading them in a new portfolio for my Greenfield Capital, along with 50 Base Metal and Precious Metal Miners, I prudently decided to limit the portfolio candidate list. Moreover, my clients at Aragon Capital for whom I have a fiduciary responsibility, come first in my time commitments. As a side note, Biotech positions represent about 0.5% weighting for clients, which will soon be zero as I am dedicated to trading metals for them. I understand metals. I am learning about Biotech.
Professional clinicians may well disagree with my choices, which is fine by me since I am a professional portfolio manager who understands that companies are not stocks. Of course, the instrument behind the stock ticker must be of good quality to sufficiently interest me to do the homework; however, stocks are just prices and I invest in prices.
Take for example, Moderna (MRNA). Here are my trades for Greenfield:
- 06/01/2020 9:35 am Order entered MRNA (EP = $61.55) for 10% of Biotech portfolio
- 06/01/2020 9:39 am Order filled at average fill price of $61.43
- 07/15/2020 9:41 am Order closed at market at average fill price of $83.71
My profit was +36.3% in under seven weeks. But Moderna was the same company on July 15 as it was on June 1.
Moreover, it was the same company two days later (July 17) when the price hit a high of $95.21.
And Moderna was still Moderna exactly one week after that (July 24) when the price hit a low of $66.64.
That is correct – the stock dropped in seven days -30.0% from the high, and in nine days -20.5% from the price I sold.
Did I care that the stock price was +13,7% higher than the price I sold MRNA for just two days earlier? Emphatically no because I do not allow the market to play me. My trading is not entertainment. I am not in the Dreaming Game. I am working to make a profit and my profit happens to have been extraordinary in this case, which is the only thing that mattered to me.
The bigger point is that MRNA the stock is not Moderna the company, and while clinicians inside the company and out had their own opinions, mine was the only one that mattered to me at the times that mattered to me.
And after I set up that Greenfield Biotech portfolio on June 1 and sold on July 15, I had 9 of 9 successful trades for a portfolio gain of +23.2%, so it’s doubtful that all the clinicians who closely follow those companies would have matched my record. Then again, that does not matter to me. I hope they are successful in their investments, but it’s their work that I admire.
With that lesson in mind, here is the Cara Community Biotech 25, which I will start trading later this month.
| ADPT, | Adaptive Biotech created an immune medicine platform and are now partnering their adaptive immune system with Amgen. Their tools help researchers & clinicians understand T-cell response in COVID-19 |
| ALEC, | Alector is pioneering immuno-neurology, trying to change treatment of neurodegenerative disorders like frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer’s & Parkinson’s diseases. Its AL001 is in phase 2 clinical trial |
| ALLO, | Allogene is developing the allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor T cell (AlloCAR T™) and other genetically engineered T-cell therapies for cancer. Four clinical candidates & 16 preclinical programs |
| ARWR, | Arrowhead Pharma develops medicines that treat intractable diseases by silencing the genes that cause them. These therapies trigger the RNA interference natural cellular mechanism in humans |
| BLUE, | bluebird bio is a clinical-stage biotech developing gene therapies for severe diseases and cancers like Cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy (CALD). Multiple myeloma, sickle cell disease, and β-thalassemia |
| BMRN, | Biomarin does gene therapy research for children’s diseases like BMN 270 for Hemophilia A. Six commercial products: injectable & tablets for PKU; and drugs for CLN2 Disease, MPS IVA and MPS I & VI |
| BNTX, | BioNTech SE is the Moderna of Germany & Europe. They collaborate with Pfizer for manufacturing scale by contributing multiple mRNA vaccine candidates as part of its BNT162 COVID-19 vaccine program |
| BTAI, | BioXcel uses artificial intelligence & big data analytics to develop medicines in immuno-oncology & neuroscience. InveniAI® identified 100+ drug candidates that could be repurposed to treat COVID-19 |
| CRSP, | CRISPR uses gene-editing technology that allows for precise directed changes to genomic DNA. Its transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia trial results for in vivo and ex vivo indications are noteworthy |
| DRNA, | Dicerna Pharma researches the RNA interference natural cellular mechanism. Using its GalXC RNAi platform, develops drugs for treating various diseases involving the liver. Many collaborative firms |
| EDIT, | Editas Medicine is developing a proprietary genome editing platform based on CRISPR technology going into both in vivo and ex vivo clinical trials using their advanced pluripotent cell line |
| FATE, | FATE Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotech. Has own pluripotent stem cell line with many partnerships to discover immunotherapies for cancer and immune disorders. Potential buy-out candidate |
| IOVA, | Iovance develops immunotherapy drugs to use a patient’s immune system to destroy cancer cells. Lifileucel is in Phase 2 clinical trial for treating melanoma & LN-145 for treating cervical cancer |
| MRNA, | Moderna is pioneering messenger RNA, a new class of drugs. This biotech is self controlled with very favorable partnerships. Their mRNA-1273 is a leading COVID-19 vaccine candidate |
| NTLA, | Intellia uses the CRISPR genome editing tool to identify and develop therapeutics for high-risk patients with breast, ovarian, endometrial, colorectal, pancreatic, and prostate genetic cancers |
| NVTA, | Invitae offers genetic tests for hereditary medical conditions and processes DNA-containing samples and analyzes data related to patient-specific genetic variation to generate reports for clinicians |
| RGNX, | REGENXBIO develops gene therapy products like RGX-314 to deliver genes to cells to address genetic defects or to enable cells in the body to produce proteins or antibodies that could fight disease |
| SDGR, | Schrodinger helps accelerate drug discovery via its computational platform. In collaboration with pharma companies offers a pipeline of preclinical & clinical programs. Twist Bio Is strategic partner |
| SGMO, | Sangamo has 4 technology platforms: gene therapy, cell therapy, in vivo genome editing & in vivo genome regulation, which enable the design of therapies to resolve underlying genetic causes of disease |
| SRPT, | Sarepta Therapeutics, world leader in precision genetic medicine for rare diseases, is evaluating multiple constructs from its proprietary RNA technology platform as potential treatments for COVID-19 |
| TPTX, | Turning Point develops novel small molecule targeted oncology therapies. Its pipeline of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) targets genetic drivers of cancer in TKI-naive & TKI-pretreated patients |
| TWST, | Twist Bioscience develops synthetic DNA-based products, including synthetic genes, tools for sample preparation, antibody libraries for drug discovery and development, & DNA on a silicon chip |
| VIR, | Vir Biotech monoclonal antibody products prevent & treat virus diseases hepatitis B, influenza A, human immunodeficiency & TB. They hope their SARS-COV-2 antibody product may become a COVID-19 vaccine |
| VRTX, | Vertex Pharma develops medicines for treating genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease, beta thalassemia, Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (AATD) & APOL1-Mediated Kidney Diseases |
| XNCR, | Xencor develops XmAb engineered monoclonal antibody & other protein therapeutics & specific antibodies to treat various cancers and autoimmune diseases. Seventeen candidates are under development |
Finviz.com Screener
https://finviz.com/screener.ashx?v=341&t=ADPT,ALLO,ARWR,BLUE,BMRN,CRSP,DRNA,EDIT,FATE,IOVA,MRNA,NTLA,RGNX,SDGR,SGMO,SRPT,TPTX,VIR,VRTX,XNCR,NVTA,TWST,ALEC,BNTX,BTAI,&o=ticker&r=21
Reducing the list to just 25 Biotech companies
I will make the time for continuous study needed for trading this industry effectively has been a chore. In addition to eliminating the popular VAXART, INC. (VXRT), I also cut INMUNE BIO INC. (INMB), GUARDANT HEALTH, INC. (GH), ALPHA PRO TECH, LTD. (APT), BIOMERICA, INC. (BMRA), CO-DIAGNOSTICS, INC. (CODX), CORMEDIX INC. (CRMD), MEIRAGTX HOLDINGS PLC (MGTX), and TRANSLATE BIO, INC. (TBIO).
baz said it would be tough, but there is so little to choose between the 25 I did select and these others that did not make the cut that I feel like they are like children, all of them important.