Investing in biotech stocks - My experience so far

BrockStoker

Voyager2002 said:

BrockStoker said:

Carnage today. AMRS seems to be holding up much better than my other stocks after announcing ANOTHER acquisition. Not surprisingly ARWR down on inking the GSK deal and receiving $120m, ha! SRNE down 16% after announcing it's sold millions of covid tests to Mexico!

What happened about the deal between ARWR and GSK? The offician announcement said that it was "closing", and a visiting solicitor said that this means that the deal is being terminanted.

Terminated? As far as I'm aware the PR yesterday is basically saying the deal has been formally agreed. I'm sure if it was not going ahead ARWR's share price would have reflected this yesterday.

BrockStoker

I had some loose change left in my GIA, so managed to grab another 500 AMRS today @ $4.38. I now have ~6500 AMRS held in various accounts. Hopefully I'll get to increase the holding further in a few weeks. Once again I'm getting that feeling of de ja vu - been here before!

tom9980

BrockStoker said:

Voyager2002 said:

BrockStoker said:

Carnage today. AMRS seems to be holding up much better than my other stocks after announcing ANOTHER acquisition. Not surprisingly ARWR down on inking the GSK deal and receiving $120m, ha! SRNE down 16% after announcing it's sold millions of covid tests to Mexico!

What happened about the deal between ARWR and GSK? The offician announcement said that it was "closing", and a visiting solicitor said that this means that the deal is being terminanted.

Terminated? As far as I'm aware the PR yesterday is basically saying the deal has been formally agreed. I'm sure if it was not going ahead ARWR's share price would have reflected this yesterday.

Yup closed means deal done with an upfront $120m payment.

adindas

BrockStoker said:

Voyager2002 said:

BrockStoker said:

Carnage today. AMRS seems to be holding up much better than my other stocks after announcing ANOTHER acquisition. Not surprisingly ARWR down on inking the GSK deal and receiving $120m, ha! SRNE down 16% after announcing it's sold millions of covid tests to Mexico!

What happened about the deal between ARWR and GSK? The offician announcement said that it was "closing", and a visiting solicitor said that this means that the deal is being terminanted.

Terminated? As far as I'm aware the PR yesterday is basically saying the deal has been formally agreed. I'm sure if it was not going ahead ARWR's share price would have reflected this yesterday.

This news
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211122006522/en/Arrowhead-Pharmaceuticals-Enters-Exclusive-License-Agreement-with-GSK-for-ARO-HSD

moneyfoolish

BrockStoker said:

I had some loose change left in my GIA, so managed to grab another 500 AMRS today @ $4.38. I now have ~6500 AMRS held in various accounts. Hopefully I'll get to increase the holding further in a few weeks. Once again I'm getting that feeling of de ja vu - been here before!

A decent price, BS, and it's come up a bit since you bought. However, I think with the state of the market we will both find we will be able to buy a lot lower before this is market fall is over!

BrockStoker

moneyfoolish said:

BrockStoker said:

I had some loose change left in my GIA, so managed to grab another 500 AMRS today @ $4.38. I now have ~6500 AMRS held in various accounts. Hopefully I'll get to increase the holding further in a few weeks. Once again I'm getting that feeling of de ja vu - been here before!

A decent price, BS, and it's come up a bit since you bought. However, I think with the state of the market we will both find we will be able to buy a lot lower before this is market fall is over!

It could have been a better price. One of my largest mental obstacles is FOMO. I always think if I don't buy ASAP that I'll miss out. But I hope you are right that the market will stay down, so I can buy even lower - if that's the case then a few cents here or there are not going to matter much since I intend to more than double my current number of shares held!

BrockStoker

The Federal Reserve update is scheduled for 7PM GMT tonight. Stocks already on the rebound. Let's hope it's good news.

BrockStoker

Interesting. Dead rubber cat, or could it be..

BrockStoker

Quite a strong day for virtually every stock I hold (they stand out like sore thumbs on my watch list, which is nice to see) - double digit % gains on all but EVFM and RR.L. Portfolio up +$9,367.16 (+6.61%). Typical for a bear-market rally I guess, but it's not inconceivable that we might have already seen bottom in the biotech sector.

While we are in a bear market technically, it's nice to see signs that some fundamentals are changing, at least in the eyes of the market - this bit of news caught my eye:

"Madhu at GS says the discontinuation of IONS cardio with PFE strengthens competitive case of aro-ang3 as potentially best in class"

IMHO it's telling how the competition keep dropping their best candidates, while in the mean time, ALL of Arrowhead's candidates are quietly accumulating superb safety/efficacy data!

I honestly can't see ARWR NOT doing well in terms share price growth over the next few years. You only have to look at what Biocryst has done recently after it's successful HAE drug approval/rollout. It's held it's gains despite the current market conditions. If that's what Biocryst can do, keeping in mind it's a whole other class compared to Arrowhead, then ARWR investors really do have good times to look forward to IRRESPECTIVE of market conditions. Of course, that is providing good data continues, and approvals, etc follow. We are not really that far behind Biocryst - I think 1-2 years with accelerated approvals, and the various designations that can be used where there is great need for something that really works.

It may not seem like it at times like this, but bit by bit Arrowhead is becoming appreciated and much loved in the places where it matters - patients, doctors and big pharma. Markets are stupid, irrational and don't understand much else apart from money, so it's just a case of putting that noise out of your mind and focusing on the science, which in turn is what keeps the patients, doctors and big pharma happy. Fashions come and go, but there will always be a need for safe and effective medicines, especially those that are best in class.

I sleep well at night (whatever the market is doing), and wish the same for every ARWR (and AMRS) investor. Knowing what you own is key here. Without that, you are unlikely to have the confidence necessary to weather the storms, or perhaps even just the threat of a storm on the horizon (it might pass you by).

BrockStoker

Right at the start of this now almost epic thread (for me at least!) @Clive_Woody suggested that identifying BP companies early is not easy.

I think it would be fair to say I proved Clive wrong right off the bat with Moderna (MRNA) which was actually the first stock I had intended to buy back in late 2019 (but when my money came through it had just gone up so I ended up buying SPCE instead, and had to wait a few days more before buying MRNA!) and I had wanted to buy more, but after a few attempts where I set the limit price a bit too low to trigger the buy, I gave up to just watch it climb, then sold it too early (live and learn). I bought 60 shares for $18.38 average, and a total investment of £855.24. I sold it for £2895.62 on 260620, a gain of around 230%. While I didn't hold on quite long enough, many now class MRNA as BP.

Perhaps that was beginners luck, but I'd also argue that CRSP is a very strong candidate, and showing early signs of greatness, although it is early days and there are some question marks (version#2,if it exists, might be the winner) over it's tech. Back on page 3 of this thread I posted a screenshot of my portfolio which held 19 stocks (a few of which I decided to sell after holding for a few weeks) back then including MRNA, CRSP, BCRX, and a few others which also did well for me. It was actually not a bad portfolio, and I still expect many of the stocks in it to do well (I may even buy one or two back at some point), but at this point in time I believe the hand I currently hold is just as strong, if not stronger.

All of that said, I want to remind everyone once again, not to risk anything they can not afford to loose. I'm mostly going on my instinct when it comes to sniffing out the kind of tech that should do well, and it might not necessarily always be the case that it does, so don't assume you are guaranteed to make big profits in a short space of time, though that is one *possibility* with stocks like these.