Best Biotech Stocks To Own Right Now

tags:AMGN,ALNY,BIIB,ARQL,

Biotech stocks��Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN),�Biogen (BIIB),�Amgen (AMGN) and Celgene (CELG), among them��have staged nice rallies during the past three months but are still down for 2016. Now, Piper Jaffray’s Joshua Schimmer and team ask: “What’s the trade for the rest of the year?” They answer their own question:

Reuters

Investors are generally lukewarm on biopharma, and many think we’re finally moving towards a ‘stock-pickers’ environment and away from the group trade that has dominated for much of the past year. Some valuations are viewed as more attractive than others, but with few obvious shorts to be found. Much discussion is on M&A target.

Large cap focus: Investors are generally sticking to more liquid names, although we are slowly seeing a return of interest to select small-caps. The general agreement is that fundamentals have changed, biopharma pricing power has eroded, payors/PBMs are wielding considerable power and more uncertainty exists for product outlooks.

Best Biotech Stocks To Own Right Now: Amgen Inc.(AMGN)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Cory Renauer]

  The recent surge in biotech investment is terrific for the pace of innovation, but that capital isn't heading toward the industry's bigger older players, a couple of which are looking mighty underappreciated right now. Perhaps the investment community's intense focus on start-ups has created interesting opportunities to snap up shares of these two overlooked biotechs at a very nice price.

  Company (Symbol) Forward P/E Ratio Free Cash Flow, Past 12 Months Cash, Cash Equivalents, and Short-Term Investments as of March 31 AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) 12.2 $10.0 billion $9.5 billion Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) 14.2 $10.9 billion $32.2 billion

  Data source: Yahoo! Finance.

• [By ]

  Booker's report took on other companies as well. Pfizer (PFE) , Gilead Sciences (GILD) , AbbVie  (ABBV) , Amgen (AMGN) , Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) , and Mylan NV (MYL) are cited for everything from raising drug prices, to stock buybacks and putting shareholder interest before that of the public.

• [By Max Byerly]

  Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) and aTyr Pharma (NASDAQ:LIFE) are both medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, dividends, earnings, risk, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

• [By Keith Speights]

  The big reason Humira will maintain its position at the top is the U.S. market. U.S. sales of the drug are projected to be around $12.2 billion in 2024. That's not much lower than Humira's 2017 U.S. sales of nearly $12.4 billion. Will Amgen's (NASDAQ:AMGN) biosimilar Amjevita, which will go on sale in the U.S. effective Jan. 31, 2023, really make that small of a dent in Humira's sales? Not really. The impact will be greater than the 2024 projections indicate.

• [By Trey Thoelcke]

  Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) shares saw a nice bump after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday approved Aimovig (erenumab), Amgen’s preventive treatment of migraine in adults. It is the first FDA-approved preventive migraine treatment in a new class of drugs, which work by blocking the activity of calcitonin gene-related peptide, which is believed to play a critical role in migraine attacks.

• [By Keith Speights]

  That difficulty hasn't stopped market research firm EvaluatePharma from trying, though. EvaluatePharma recently published a list of the drugmakers with the projected highest value creation from pipeline�products between 2018 and 2024. Here's why Novartis (NYSE:NVS), AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV), Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG), AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN), and Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) ranked at the top.

Best Biotech Stocks To Own Right Now: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc.(ALNY)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Joseph Griffin]

  BidaskClub lowered shares of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research report released on Monday.

• [By Sean Williams, Chuck Saletta, and Brian Feroldi]

  So, which biotech stocks should you consider buying in June? That's a question we posed to three of our healthcare-focused investors. Interestingly enough, mid-cap biotech stocks are the clear flavor of the month. If biotech is on your radar in June, our investors suggest you consider Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IONS), Spark Therapeutics (NASDAQ:ONCE), and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY).

• [By Brian Orelli]

  The delay in an FDA decision for Tegsedi puts it behind competitor Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY), which expects to hear from the FDA by Aug. 11 for its hATTR drug patisiran. But Sarah Boyce, the president at Akcea Therapeutics, doesn't think a few months will really matter: "We don't really feel that's going to have any impact and the drugs will be close enough together from a launch perspective. So not really [going] to make any adjustments, and we're very well prepared to be ready to launch following approval."

• [By Max Byerly]

  Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 3rd. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($1.41) EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($1.47) by $0.06. The business had revenue of $21.90 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $35.23 million. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals had a negative return on equity of 36.81% and a negative net margin of 565.20%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 15.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted ($1.25) earnings per share. equities analysts anticipate that Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. will post -6.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

• [By Logan Wallace]

  Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY) was downgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a hold rating to a sell rating. According to Zacks, “Although Alnylam has a broad and promising pipeline, we note that most candidates are in mid stages of development. These candidates still have a long way to go before hitting the market. The company relies highly on collaborators for funding. Any development/regulatory setback would be a negative for the company.  However, Alnylam reported positive data from the ATLAS study in the first quarter which led to regulatory filings for its late-stage pipeline candidate patisiran and the FDA set an action date of Aug 11, 2018. The company along with its partners Sanofi and The Medicines Company, restarted fitusiran's ATLAS phase III study and advanced inclisiran in the ORION-9, -10, and -11 phase III studies, respectively, with results expected for both programs in 2019. Alnylam expects to achieve the profile of three marketed products by the end of 2020.”

Best Biotech Stocks To Own Right Now: Biogen Idec Inc(BIIB)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Chris Lange]

  Short interest in Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB) increased to 3.50 million shares from the previous 3.16 million. The stock recently traded at $262.15, within a 52-week range of $244.28 to $370.57.

• [By Brian Orelli]

  Shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IONS) ended the day down 10.6% after an earnings report�from partner Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB) started the day on a sour note. Then shares dropped even further midday after data was released�for IONIS-HTTRx, a treatment for Huntington's disease. Biogen managed to end the day in the green, up 1.1%.

• [By Steve Symington]

  But several individual stocks lagged the broader market. Read on to see why Cerner (NASDAQ:CERN), Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB), and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)�slumped today.

• [By Sean Williams, Chuck Saletta, and Brian Feroldi]

  As noted, the ability to take numerous swings for the fence makes Ionis special. It's often a marvel when a mid-cap drugmaker has a half-dozen experimental drugs, let alone one working with 25. Spinal muscular atrophy drug Spinraza, which was licensed to Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB), is one such drug that's put Ionis and its antisense technology on the map. Last year, Spinraza netted "just" $882 million in total sales, but delivered $364 million globally in the first quarter of 2018. That extrapolates out to more than $1.4 billion, which means added royalty revenue for Ionis.

• [By Chris Lange]

  The S&P 500 stock posting the largest daily percentage loss ahead of the close was Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB) which traded down over 5% at $288.75. The stock��s 52-week range is $249.17 to $370.57. Volume was 3.2 million compared to the daily average volume of 1.7 million.

• [By Jim Crumly]

  As for individual stocks, Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB) made headlines with positive results from a trial of an Alzheimer's drug, and PriceSmart (NASDAQ:PSMT) fell after reporting earnings.

Best Biotech Stocks To Own Right Now: ArQule Inc.(ARQL)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Logan Wallace]

  ValuEngine downgraded shares of ArQule (NASDAQ:ARQL) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Saturday.

  Several other brokerages also recently issued reports on ARQL. Zacks Investment Research upgraded shares of ArQule from a hold rating to a buy rating and set a $2.75 target price for the company in a research note on Tuesday, May 8th. B. Riley set a $4.00 target price on shares of ArQule and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Monday, March 26th. Roth Capital raised their target price on shares of ArQule from $5.00 to $6.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 17th. BidaskClub upgraded shares of ArQule from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Saturday, May 19th. Finally, Leerink Swann upgraded shares of ArQule from a market perform rating to an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, April 5th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. The company has an average rating of Buy and a consensus price target of $5.35.

• [By Money Morning Staff Reports]

  But Blink and our other penny stocks to watch are unlikely to continue to lock in such spectacular gains in June. After looking at our 10 top penny stocks to watch this month, we'll show you a small-cap stock with great profit potential in its future…

  Penny Stock Current Share Price Law Month's Gain �Blink Charging Co. (Nasdaq: BLNK) $7.07 439.85% Senes Tech Inc. (Nasdaq: SNES) $1.27 175.40% Vivis Inc. (Nasdaq: VVUS) $0.77 150.41% Adomani Inc. (Nasdaq: ADOM) $1.49 137.68% NF Energy Saving Co. (Nasdaq: NFEC) $2.34 134.88% Vaalco Energy Inc. (NYSE: EGY) $2.15 109.06% Heat Biologics Inc. (Nasdaq: HTBX) $2.35 99.12% ArQule Inc. (Nasdaq: ARQL) $4.88 90.74% LiqTech International Inc. (NYSE: LIQT) $0.66 85.60% Transenterix Inc. (NYSE: TRXC) $3.46 77.84%

  While last month's gains are tremendous, they also illustrate the inherent dangers that come with investing in penny stocks.

• [By Lisa Levin] Gainers Foot Locker, Inc. (NYSE: FL) rose 15.3 percent to $53.50 in pre-market trading after the company reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter. Evofem Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: EVFM) rose 10.4 percent to $4.58 in pre-market trading. Evofem Biosciences reported closing of public offering of common stock and warrants. Resonant Inc. (NASDAQ: RESN) rose 7.3 percent to $4.88 in pre-market trading after declining 1.94 percent on Thursday. SolarEdge Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: SEDG) shares rose 5.7 percent to $59.65 in pre-market trading after falling 8.43 percent on Thursday. Yirendai Ltd. (NYSE: YRD) rose 5 percent to $30.00 in pre-market trading after reporting Q1 results. Deckers Outdoor Corp (NYSE: DECK) rose 4.9 percent to $108.75 in pre-market trading after reporteingd better-than-expected results for its fiscal fourth quarter. Blue Apron Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: APRN) rose 4.2 percent to $3.21 in pre-market trading after gaining 3.70 percent on Thursday. Recro Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: REPH) rose 4 percent to $5.85 in pre-market trading after dropping 54.67 percent on Thursday. ArQule, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARQL) rose 3.8 percent to $4.70 in pre-market trading after gaining 4.86 percent on Thursday. Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE: BW) shares rose 2.9 percent to $2.85 in pre-market trading after climbing 7.78 percent on Thursday. Bilibili Inc. (NASDAQ: BILI) shares rose 2.5 percent to $14.20 in pre-market trading after surging 11.33 percent on Thursday.

  Find out what's going on in today's market and bring any questions you have to Benzinga's PreMarket Prep.

• [By Logan Wallace]

  BidaskClub upgraded shares of ArQule (NASDAQ:ARQL) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report released on Saturday.

  A number of other research firms have also issued reports on ARQL. Roth Capital upped their price target on ArQule from $5.00 to $6.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 17th. Leerink Swann upgraded ArQule from a market perform rating to an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday, April 5th. Zacks Investment Research lowered ArQule from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 4th. ValuEngine upgraded ArQule from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 2nd. Finally, B. Riley set a $4.00 price target on ArQule and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Monday, March 26th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, The stock currently has an average rating of Buy and an average target price of $4.69.