CDC Is Asking States to Prepare for COVID-19 Vaccines The U.S. Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has asked the 50 states’ public health officials to be ready to distribute potential COVID-19 vaccines to high-risk people, healthcare workers and others as soon as late October, as showed in a document yesterday. The New York Times (NYT) has also reported today that the CDC has …

Firms' with COVID-19 Vaccines Stock Performance A look at the stock performance of the COVID-19 vaccine firms that have demonstrated early, promising and even good news regarding their prophylactic effect. The outcome was as follows:    Moderna (MRNA): was down over 12% after an analyst at J.P.Morgan downgraded the company to neutral from overweight, overvaluation . . . This content is for paid subscribers. Please …

Pfizer and BioNTech Vaccines Were Granted FDA Fast Track Designation Against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) A large Phase 2b/3 safety and efficacy study may begin as early as July 2020 Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX) announced that two of the companies’ four investigational vaccine candidates from their BNT162 mRNA-based vaccine program (BNT162b1 and BNT162b2) being developed against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) received Fast Track designation from the U.S. Food …

Prohost Letter #441 Biotechnology Companies’ Evaluations Are We Saying Goodbye to Common Sense? The SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines It is said that the difference between the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (COVID-19), which is causing the pandemic around the world we are currently suffering from, and other coronaviruses like SARS and/or MERS is that SARS-CoV-2 ability to replicate in the human bodies' respiratory system’s upper airways more than the others. …

Novel Coronavirus Vaccines and Wall Street Vaccines against novel coronavirus are recognized now as the only way to return disrupted human lives back to normal. Vaccines have become the most important topic for Wall Street’s investors and analysts especially at times when the virus demonstrates its capability to continue disrupting human lives on the entire planet. Betting up and down on the firms that are …

The Week in Review #51 Questions & Answers About CytomX Q: Is there any reason for the CytomX stock selloff that occurred in early May? In order to answer this question we need to explain CytomX’s (CTMX) Probody therapeutics. These novel treatments are designed to remain inactive until they are activated only . . . This content is for paid subscribers. Please click here to subscribe …

RegenxBio License Agreement with Pfizer RegenxBio (RGNX) announced a license agreement with Pfizer (PFE). Under the terms of the agreement RegenxBio has granted Pfizer a non-exclusive worldwide license, with rights to sublicense, to RegenxBio’s NAV AAV9 vector for the development and commercialization of gene therapies for Friedreich’s ataxia (FA). The most common hereditary ataxia (neurological lack of muscle coordination). RegenxBio will receive an upfront payment and has …

Sangamo and Pfizer Gene Therapy SB-525 Resulted in a Sustained Increase in Factor VIII Levels in Hemophilia Patients Sangamo Therapeutics (SGMO) and Pfizer (

Pfizer to Acquire Array Pfizer (PFE) announced that it has agreed to acquire Array Biopharma (ARRY) in a deal valued at $11.4 billion.  The Terms of the Agreement Under the terms of the agreement, Pfizer will pay $48 in cash for each Array share. That is around 62% above the $29.59 stock price as it closed on Friday. The price paid represents around $10.64 billion …

Sangamo’s Stock Price Soars Sangamo Therapeutics’ (SGMO) stock soared more than 52% in pre-market trading following the announcement with Pfizer (PFE), of interim data from Phase 1/2 Alta study evaluating the firm’s gene therapy product SB-525 for severe hemophilia A.  The Product, SB-525 SB-525 comprises a recombinant adeno-associated virus serotype 6 vector (AAV6) encoding the complementary deoxyribonucleic acid for B domain deleted human FVIII. The …

A number of biotech or biopharmaceutical companies have succeeded in the past couple of years in changing their statuses from clinical stage to revenues-generating firms. A number of these firms reside in the Prohost Portfolio, picked up before they generated revenues from their newly approved products’ sales. We are following up on these firms’ news as they come out of their new journeys towards marketing …

Tanezumab, an investigational humanized monoclonal antibody developed by Pfizer (PFE) and Eli Lilly (LLY), met all three co-primary endpoints in patients with osteoarthritis (OA). The 16-week Phase 3 study, which evaluated subcutaneous administration of tanezumab in patients with OA, demonstrated that the patients who received two doses of tanezumab, separated by eight weeks, experienced a statistically significant improvement in pain, physical function and patients’ overall assessment …

The Week in Review #31 IN THE DEPARTED WEEK NOVEL MIGRAINE DRUGS ARE APPROVED ELI LILLY AFTER AMGEN AND TEVA In less than five months, the FDA approved three products belonging to four drug developers – all targeting calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) for the prevention of migraine headache. The latest for Eli Lilly (LLY) last week . . . This content is for paid subscribers. …

ProhostLetter #423 TOMORROW’S THERAPEUTICS TODAY For a more or less fair evaluation of biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms, analysts currently rely for their assessment on criteria that include quarterly financial results, products’ sales revenues, and year over year growth of each and every marketed therapeutic. When it comes to clinical-stage firms, the logic implies that these criteria cannot be relied on for evaluation, as most of …

SPARK THERAPEUTICS, SANGAMO THERAPEUTICS AND SALK INSTITUTE CURING HEMOPHILIA?   Hemophilia is an inherited bleeding disorder that causes abnormal or exaggerated bleeding and poor blood clotting. Hemophilia A and Hemophilia B are inherited in an X-linked recessive genetic pattern, so males are commonly affected while females are usually carriers of the disease. Hemophilia A is caused by clotting Factor VIII deficiency and hemophilia B (Christmas disease) is caused by Factor IX deficiency. A …

Prohost Letter #420 REAL BREAKTHROUGHS - One Has Already Been Used and the Other Has Extraordinary Promises In  the  NEWS - THE POWER OF CHECKPOINT INHIBITOR IMMUNOTHERAPY WOW It is about the checkpoint inhibitors immunotherapy, which is bringing to the world of cancer a stunning revelation of a combination treatment offering an almost cure for a lung cancer...

THE BIOTECH EVOLUTION: AN UNPARALLELED SPEED The Tremendous Regret Investors Will Feel If They Sell the Best of the Best Biotechnology Firms Only Because the Market Is Weird   Even if one is scared and feels he should sell shares, he must be wise enough to select those stocks whose prices are closer to reaching the targets he estimated as representing their fair values. Biotech investors who lend their ears to …

Sangamo’s (SGMO) has abundant positive news since it offered proof of concept and feasibility of its zinc finger protein transcription factor (ZFP-TF)-mediated gene regulation approach and other approaches. The most recent announcement was made early today by Sangamo and Pfizer (PFE) about a new collaboration. The cooperation aimed at developing a potential therapy for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) linked to mutations of the C9ORF72 gene. The firms will …

The Week in Review #13 From the Prohost Portfolio - 1. Betting on the technology - HALOZYME - As expected, the pulse of fat agreements with HALO is accelerating . . . This content is for paid subscribers. Please click here to subscribe or here to log in.

The Week in Review #9 KNOCKING DOWN THE BIOTECH STOCKS - Knocking down the biotech companies’ stocks during the announcement of the quarterly reports is no news. Most investors in the stock market, especially those who invest in the biotech sector have become familiar with this pattern . . . This content is for paid subscribers. Please click here to subscribe or here to log in.