https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/06/12/heres-why-wall-streets-betting-against-clovis-onco/
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@eatshitndie will this small pharma one product oncology company be a 10x stock like Moderna?
- Thread starter ginfreely
- Start date
Betting against biotech stocks is a pretty scary way to make money -- and it's getting a whole lot scarier now that retail investors have learned how to work as a team to create short squeezes. Clovis Oncology(NASDAQ:CLVS), a commercial-stage biotech, has recently become a target among members of Reddit's WallStreetBets community with just that purpose in mind.
Clovis Oncology is facing so many challenges right now that nearly 30% of its outstanding shares have been borrowed and sold short in order to bet against the company's success. However, while lots of institutional money is being put behind the idea that Clovis Oncology's stock price is a disaster waiting to happen, there are reasons to believe Wall Street has it wrong.
Here's what you should know before exposing your own portfolio to this risky biotech.
Clovis Oncology is facing so many challenges right now that nearly 30% of its outstanding shares have been borrowed and sold short in order to bet against the company's success. However, while lots of institutional money is being put behind the idea that Clovis Oncology's stock price is a disaster waiting to happen, there are reasons to believe Wall Street has it wrong.
Here's what you should know before exposing your own portfolio to this risky biotech.
Reasons to buy
Short-selling has always been a dangerous game because stock prices have a nasty tendency to remain irrational for much longer than investors can remain solvent. If a heavily shorted stock's price gets too high, hedge funds and individuals alike can be forced to cover their short positions, leaving them with enormous losses.Clovis Oncology has more going for it than just a potential short squeeze. In 2016, the company's first drug, Rubraca, earned approval from the FDA to treat a genetically defined group of ovarian cancer patients. The easy-to-swallow tablet has more recently also been approved to treat advanced-stage prostate cancer patients who have BRCA mutations.
Now, Clovis Oncology is developing lucitanib as a potential new treatment for gynecologic cancers in combination with Opdivo from Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY). Opdivo is a blockbuster cancer drug that sent $7.0 billion in sales to Bristol Myers Squibb's top line last year.
When drugs like Opdivo work, they can be incredibly effective. Unfortunately, most patients don't respond to them for reasons that aren't entirely clear. Bristol Myers Squibb has been known to sign lucrative partnership deals with companies like Clovis Oncology to secure access to cancer treatments like lucitanib that might boost Opdivo's utility.
When drugs like Opdivo work, they can be incredibly effective. Unfortunately, most patients don't respond to them for reasons that aren't entirely clear. Bristol Myers Squibb has been known to sign lucrative partnership deals with companies like Clovis Oncology to secure access to cancer treatments like lucitanib that might boost Opdivo's utility.
What the short-sellers see
Rubraca makes it hard for tumor cells to repair their DNA by inhibiting poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP). Unfortunately for Clovis Oncology, Rubraca isn't the only PARP inhibitor that has been approved by the FDA to treat patients in its limited populations. This is why sales of Rubraca have been enormously disappointing since it earned FDA approval in 2016.Lynparza is a competing PARP inhibitor that AstraZeneca(NASDAQ:AZN) markets in partnership with Merck (NYSE:MRK) to treat the same ovarian cancer patients as Rubraca, as well as newly diagnosed patients, a group that Rubraca isn't approved to treat. Similarly, Lynparza has been approved to treat the same third-line prostate cancer patients as Rubraca, plus less heavily pre-treated patients.
While Lynparza's sales rocketed 37% higher year over year in the first quarter to $543 million, Rubraca's quarterly sales have never topped the $50 million mark. With just a trickle of revenue coming in, Clovis Oncology keeps bleeding money.
With limited resources, Clovis could find it impossible to run the clinical trials that might help Rubraca get ahead of Lynparza. Even if the company finds a way to get a leg up on Merck and AstraZeneca, there are other PARP inhibitors from GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer to contend with.
CLVS PERCENT OF SHARES OUTSTANDING SHORTDATA BY YCHARTS
CLVS PERCENT OF SHARES OUTSTANDING SHORTDATA BY YCHARTS
Clovis Oncology shareholders shouldn't hold their breath for a juicy offer from Bristol Myers Squibb for the rights to lucitanib. In June, the company presented disappointing clinical trial results from a phase 2 study treating ovarian cancer patients with lucitanib. Adding Clovis Oncology's most promising new drug candidate to Opdivo shrank tumors in just one out of the 22 participants.
When a company has just one approved product, a lack of potential new sources of revenue, and a pattern of chronic losses, that's a bad combination. Given Clovis Oncology's lack of a visible path to profitability, the only reason to buy its shares right now would be the expectation of a Reddit-fueled short squeeze. There's a chance that gamble will pay off, but relying on WallStreetBets to bail you out every time you buy overpriced shares of struggling businesses is not a great strategy for building wealth.
Investing or gambling?
At the moment, around 30% of Clovis Oncology shares available for trading are sold short. Given the number of shares that change hands on an average day, it would take more than seven days for investors to cover all those positions.When a company has just one approved product, a lack of potential new sources of revenue, and a pattern of chronic losses, that's a bad combination. Given Clovis Oncology's lack of a visible path to profitability, the only reason to buy its shares right now would be the expectation of a Reddit-fueled short squeeze. There's a chance that gamble will pay off, but relying on WallStreetBets to bail you out every time you buy overpriced shares of struggling businesses is not a great strategy for building wealth.
So one product can treat both ovarian cancer and prostate cancer. No diff between male and female organs too.
Great that cancer cells do not discriminate between male and female. I hope self claimed studs slut shaming Ccb men like @glockman @Cottonmouth get prostate cancer and take the same cancer drug as women with ovarian cancer Hahaha
And that’s called karma indeed
Oh mrna can treat cancer. Life is full of hope for cancer patients indeed. Thanks to Angmoh the best.
Nope they don’t but many liar sons of whores sure practise cancel culture a lot like @empathizerofeatshitndie cancel their evil misdeeds done on me and cancel their promise to leave the forum. @glockman too cancel their actions like starting threads on slut prostitutes, blowing up birds and pigs around me and then not just act innocent but turned around to blame the victim as done evil so deserved his evil deeds.
January 25, 2021
Can mRNA vaccines be used in cancer care?
BY DEVON CARTER
A B-cell displaying antibodies created in response to foreign protein fragments produced from a personalized mRNA vaccine recognizes a colorectal cancer cell and signals killer T-cells to destroy it.
The COVID-19 vaccines mark the first widespread use of mRNA technology. They work by using synthetic genetic code to instruct the patient’s cells to recognize the coronavirus and activate the immune system against the virus.
But researchers began exploring how to use mRNA vaccines as a new way to treat cancer long before this technology was used against the coronavirus.
“We've known about this technology for a long time, well before COVID-19,” says Van Morris, M.D. Here, he explains how mRNA vaccines work and how a team of MD Anderson colorectal cancer experts led by Scott Kopetz, M.D., Ph.D., are testing the technology in a Phase II clinical trial.
What is mRNA?
Messenger RNA – known as mRNA – are genetic instructions for our cells. “mRNA serves as a code to make proteins,” Morris says. Proteins are needed for cellular functions inside our bodies, including growth, energy production and defense against illnesses.
mRNA technology is a strand of mRNA created in a lab that prompts the recipient’s cells to create protein fragments that are based on the “non-self” DNA characteristics of the vaccine’s target. When recognized, the protein fragments trigger a response from the patient’s immune system. “The protein fragments created from the mRNA signal are recognized by the immune system as foreign,” Morris says. “The immune system kills those cells and says, ‘I'm going to see if I can find any other cells in the body with these foreign proteins and kills those, too.’”
In the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, the mRNA causes the recipient’s cells to produce the spike protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The immune system then recognizes the spike as “not self” and produces another type of protein called antibodies. These defend the body against the coronavirus.
Messenger RNA – known as mRNA – are genetic instructions for our cells. “mRNA serves as a code to make proteins,” Morris says. Proteins are needed for cellular functions inside our bodies, including growth, energy production and defense against illnesses.
mRNA technology is a strand of mRNA created in a lab that prompts the recipient’s cells to create protein fragments that are based on the “non-self” DNA characteristics of the vaccine’s target. When recognized, the protein fragments trigger a response from the patient’s immune system. “The protein fragments created from the mRNA signal are recognized by the immune system as foreign,” Morris says. “The immune system kills those cells and says, ‘I'm going to see if I can find any other cells in the body with these foreign proteins and kills those, too.’”
In the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, the mRNA causes the recipient’s cells to produce the spike protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The immune system then recognizes the spike as “not self” and produces another type of protein called antibodies. These defend the body against the coronavirus.
Could mRNA technology prevent colorectal cancer recurrence?
A team of international researchers is working to test whether mRNA technology could prevent colorectal cancer from recurring.
The standard treatment for many colorectal cancer patients is surgery, but cancer cells can remain in the body after the tumor is removed. These remaining cancer cells shed DNA into the bloodstream, which is referred to as circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA).
A clinical trial led by Morris and Kopetzis following high-risk patients with stage II or stage III colorectal cancer who test positive for circulating tumor DNA after surgery.
The presence of circulating tumor DNA is checked with a blood test. “If there is ctDNA present, it can mean that a patient is at higher risk for the cancer coming back,” Morris says.
He says that the opposite can also be true: if there is not circulating tumor DNA present, the patient may have a lower risk of recurrence.
Personalizing an mRNA vaccine for mutations that cause cancer
In the Phase II clinical trial, enrolled patients start chemotherapy after the tumor is surgically removed. Tissue from the tumor is sent off to a specialized lab, where it’s tested to look for genetic mutations that fuel the cancer’s growth.
Morris says anywhere from five to 20 mutations specific to that patient’s tumor can be identified during testing. The mutations are then prioritized by the most common to the least common, and an mRNA vaccine is created based on that ranking. “Each patient on the trial receives a personalized mRNA vaccine based on their individual mutation test results from their tumor,” Morris says.
As with the COVID-19 vaccines, the mRNA instructs the patient’s cells to produce protein fragments based off tumor’s genetic mutations identified during testing. The immune system then searches for other cells with the mutated proteins and clears out any remaining circulating tumor cells.
“We’re hopeful that with the personalized vaccine, we’re priming the immune system to go after the residual tumor cells, clear them out and cure the patient,” says Morris.
A team of international researchers is working to test whether mRNA technology could prevent colorectal cancer from recurring.
The standard treatment for many colorectal cancer patients is surgery, but cancer cells can remain in the body after the tumor is removed. These remaining cancer cells shed DNA into the bloodstream, which is referred to as circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA).
A clinical trial led by Morris and Kopetzis following high-risk patients with stage II or stage III colorectal cancer who test positive for circulating tumor DNA after surgery.
The presence of circulating tumor DNA is checked with a blood test. “If there is ctDNA present, it can mean that a patient is at higher risk for the cancer coming back,” Morris says.
He says that the opposite can also be true: if there is not circulating tumor DNA present, the patient may have a lower risk of recurrence.
Personalizing an mRNA vaccine for mutations that cause cancer
In the Phase II clinical trial, enrolled patients start chemotherapy after the tumor is surgically removed. Tissue from the tumor is sent off to a specialized lab, where it’s tested to look for genetic mutations that fuel the cancer’s growth.
Morris says anywhere from five to 20 mutations specific to that patient’s tumor can be identified during testing. The mutations are then prioritized by the most common to the least common, and an mRNA vaccine is created based on that ranking. “Each patient on the trial receives a personalized mRNA vaccine based on their individual mutation test results from their tumor,” Morris says.
As with the COVID-19 vaccines, the mRNA instructs the patient’s cells to produce protein fragments based off tumor’s genetic mutations identified during testing. The immune system then searches for other cells with the mutated proteins and clears out any remaining circulating tumor cells.
“We’re hopeful that with the personalized vaccine, we’re priming the immune system to go after the residual tumor cells, clear them out and cure the patient,” says Morris.
A leader in circulating tumor DNA
MD Anderson researchers are hopeful for the future of circulating tumor DNA. “It’s an evolving technology,” says Morris. “It’s new and exciting, and we know it can help us predict which patients are at a high risk of recurrence.”
Morris says this clinical trial is one of many exploring this new approach. “MD Anderson is a world leader in colorectal clinical trials for ctDNA,” he adds. “No matter your stage of disease, we have a new trial potentially for you.”
Request an appointment at MD Anderson online or by calling 1-844-481-1507.
https://www.mdanderson.org/cancerwi...-19-be-used-in-cancer-care.h00-159457689.html
MD Anderson researchers are hopeful for the future of circulating tumor DNA. “It’s an evolving technology,” says Morris. “It’s new and exciting, and we know it can help us predict which patients are at a high risk of recurrence.”
Morris says this clinical trial is one of many exploring this new approach. “MD Anderson is a world leader in colorectal clinical trials for ctDNA,” he adds. “No matter your stage of disease, we have a new trial potentially for you.”
Request an appointment at MD Anderson online or by calling 1-844-481-1507.
https://www.mdanderson.org/cancerwi...-19-be-used-in-cancer-care.h00-159457689.html
Shiok indeed just thinking of it. This must be the same kind of Shiok feeling as what @glockman experienced when he started threads on blowing up birds and pigs around me within minutes of my posting in this forum.
And fucking losers like @empathizerofeatshitndie after cancel their own promise to leave the forum got the cheek to act righteous to persecut me on my promise which I have no intention to cancel Hahaha
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