As you may already know, January is a big deal for the biotech industry as it’s the time of year most acquisitions and mergers take place. JP Morgan’s Healthcare Conference starts next week and could be a great week for the biotech industry.
January is disproportionately represented both by number of deals and dollar value over the past 5 years, January has seen as high as 33% of a year’s total deals (5/15 in Jan 2018) and as high as 48% of a year’s total dollar value ($36bn/$76bn in Jan 2017).
– Josh Schimmer; Evercore ISI Analyst
An exception made by the analyst was January of 2016, the last presidential year when drug pricing was a major political issue.
The question is whether this month will look like the previous months. Some major deals announce in the previous January’s include:
- Bristel-Meyers Squibb (Acquired Celgene)
- Eli Lily (Acquired Loxo Oncology)
While the biotech industry entered 2020 with great stock gains, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) rose 20% and is down 0.7% this month.
Remember, JP Morgan’s Health Conference starts Monday with thousands of companies scheduled to make presentations to investors, executives, and analysts. Count on a packed event with thousands of attendees and big news from clinical studies.
Biotech Trends in Gene & Cell Medicine
With over 800 gene therapy trials in the running and mature stages, we will likely see a leap in new gene medicine approvals and growth in CAR-T spheres.
Genetic medicine that directly changes genes or their expression is an off the shelf solution. CAR-T is extremely personalized in that patient’s immune system. With the FDA approving these therapies, doctors will collect a patient’s T cells and genetically engineer them to boost their cancer-hunting abilities and then infuse them back into the patient.
There is some problems with this approach but promising results are under way.
3 Biotech Stocks you Should Watch in 2020
- Aptose Biosciences (NASDAQ: APTO) – Addresses the unmet clinical need in cancer, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), and other hematologic malignancies.
- Trillium Therapeutics (NASDAQ: TRIL) – Addresses development of therapies for the treatment of cancer. Its pipeline is comprised of TTI-621, TTI-622, and TTI-2341(EGFR Inhibitor).
- Guardion Health Sciences (NASDAQ: GHSI) – Addresses early detection, intervention and monitoring of a range of eye diseases.
