Prohost Letter #404 Part 2 Synthetic Biology (2) A Brief History DNA is the software of life. This is how Synthetic Genomics firm, which we believe is now is the leading biotech firm for applied synthetic biology. Synthetic Genomics is still a private firm in spite of that thousands of investors are impatiently waiting for it to turn public and it will. So stay tuned. …

It seems that the global Takeda (TKPYY) has guessed well what it should pick in order to bring the most effective targeted treatments to cancer patients allover the globe. Cancer management has unreservedly changed. What seems now to have become the best treatment choices are those that would accommodate the new wave of extremely promising immunotherapy approaches. To reach its ultimate success, immunotherapy drugs require …

Underestimating the Value of Drugs that Disrupt the DNA Repair Mechanisms in Cancer Cells. AstraZeneca’s (AZN) Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said that while DNA damage response was under-recognized by investors, oncologists were already “very excited” by its potential of the drugs targeting DNA repair mechanisms inside cancer cells. According to AstraZeneca, drugs that disrupt the DNA repair mechanisms inside cancer cells are showing tangible promise for …

Biotech NEWS   AGENUS Agenus’ First Checkpoint Inhibitor to reach Clinical Trial The first patient has been dosed in Agenus (AGEN) Phase 1 clinical trial of its checkpoint inhibitor product AGEN1884. The open-label, multicenter trial in patients with advanced or refractory cancer is designed to evaluate the safety of AGEN1884 and determine the estimated maximum tolerated dose. AGEN1884 is an anti-CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4) checkpoint …

Meaningful Presentations at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) NEKTAR THERAPEUTICS NKTR-214 Drug Improves Survival and Extends Immunity in cancer Immunotherapy Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR) investigational immune-stimulatory cytokine therapy NKTR-214 is in Phase 1/2 trial. At the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting, Nektar announced new preclinical data for NKTR-214, which demonstrate both its activity as a single-agent and its synergistic activity with checkpoint blockade. …

Prohost Letter #394 Part 2 PART 2 - Part 1 of the Prohost letter issue #394 posted on March 31,2016 ended with the review of Ariad Pharmaceuticals (ARIA), one of the biotech firms that have at least one marketed product that we believe have the chance to boost their revenues in the near-future. In this part 2 of the same Prohost Letter, we add other firms …

Prohost Letter #384 The Assassination of the Biotech Sector The Market (Part 2) On Friday September 18, 2015, the biotechnology sector occupied the news headlines for two different reasons. The first was the sudden unexplicable and unexpected plummeting of the biotech sector. The stocks were flying sky high until modday and suddenly, all the biotech stocks, without exception, took a dive. The second reason was the triumph of …

Prohost Letter #383 The Market - Recent tails about the market and the biotech sector are true thrillers. By true we mean no-fiction. The accounts lack common sense. Professionals' interpretations of the stocks' and of the market's moves are bizarre and misleading. General investors complain only when the stocks' volatility gets out of hand, yet, do not object to the hype, or interferes against the baseless …

Prohost Letter #378 Part 2 2015 ASCO ANNUAL MEETING What a Big Revolution in Oncology! The ASCO meeting projected the huge advancement in the understanding, diagnosing and treating cancer. What looked as if a sudden explosion has brought in the big change, the change was, in fact a slow, deep-rooted evolution, built up over a long period of trial and error with the failures constituting …

– Immunogen’s recurrent ovarian cancer drug Mirvetuximab soravtansine (IMGN853) has demonstrated promising results. – The firm succeeded in developing and owning the drug. –  ImmunoGen is doing whatever it takes to get the drug to the patients as quickly as possible and to explore the possibility of treating other cancers with the same drug. – The market showed extreme enthusiasm for the news. ImmunoGen’s (IMGN) …

Prohost Letter #377 PICKING BIOTECH FIRMS Before Investing in Them Raising the bar in designating small drug developing firms as biotechnology firms has occurred several times since 2011. In that year, many technologies were tremendously enhanced, which enabled them to realize superior goals, i.e., produce safer and more effective breakthrough drugs for chronic debilitating and life-threatening diseases. Prohost Portfolios picks, which have outperformed other industries’ …