5 Top NASDAQ Biotech Stocks: Tenax on top with a 51.94 Percent Increase

This past week the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index (INDEXNASDAQ:NBI) had a minor decrease of 1.67 percent to 3,434.8 points. Year-to-date, the NBI has increased 2.29 percent as of 1:30 p.m. EST Friday (March 2). 

The companies on our roundup list week are from an assortment of focuses, making up a well-rounded list of biotech stocks for investors.

On that note, the top 5 biotech stocks to make the most gains last week include:

• Tenax Therapeutics (NASDAQ:TENX)
• Durect (NASDAQ:DRRX)
• Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:TTPH)
• Achillion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ACHN)
• Ocular Therapeutix (NASDAQ:OCUL)

Here’s a closer look at those companies to see what moved their share prices.

Tenax Therapeutics

With an impressive 51.94 percent increase in their share price to $7.70 over the past week’s trading period, Tenax Therapeutics is top on the list this week.

Tenax is a specialty pharmaceutical company focusing developing drugs for high unmet medical needs. The company acquired the North American rights to develop and commercialize Levosimendan—an drug used to decompensated heart failure.

Lately the company’s stock price may have improved from releasing a positive preclinical study published the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology about Levosimendan. The authors from the study concluded chronic treatment with the drug prevents and reverts the development of right ventricular failure in a rat model.

Durect

Durect is a biopharmaceutical company that has a wide pipeline of drug in development based on its Epigenetic Regulator Program and proprietary drug delivery platforms. DUR-928 is the company’s lead candidate in Phase 2 of a clinical trial, which may help patients with acute organ injury, hepatic and renal diseases.

Investors were likely interested in this company last week because it announced fourth quarter and full year 2017 financial results. Year-over-year, fourth quarter revenue increased 457.14 percent from $3.5 million in Q4 2016 to $19.5 million in Q4 2017; full year revenue increased 251.43 percent from $3.7 million to $49.2 million.

Over last wee’s trading period, shares of Durect increased 32.61 percent to $1.46 as at the time of this writing.

Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals

Tetraphase is in the middle of our list with a share price increase of 21.82 percent to $2.64 as of the time of writing this article.

This biopharmaceutical company is developing antibiotics for serious and life threatening bacterial infections including those caused by multidrug-resistant highlighted from the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Over last week’s trading period, Tetraphase announced the US Food and Drug Administration determined the company’s New Drug Application was complete to permit a review.

Achillion Pharmaceuticals

Achillion is another  biopharmaceutical company on last week’s list. This company works to develop drugs for complement-mediated diseases. One drug the company developed, factor D inhibitors—two of which are in Phase 2 clinical studies—works to treat is Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria is a rare, acquired, life-threatening disease of the blood.

Last week Achillion announced receiving positive opinion for orphan drug designation in the European Union, which may influence the European Commission to adopt the same opinion.

Achillion’s share price increased 19.8 percent over last week’s trading period to reach $3.52 as of the time of writing this article.

Ocular Therapeutix

Ocular made it on the list with a 15.87 percent increase over the past trading week, raising it’s share price to $5.94.

This biopharmaceutical company is focused on developing, commercializing and manufacturing therapies for eye diseases and conditions. Ocular’s lead product candidate Dextenza, for intracanalicular use treating ocular pain and inflammation from post-ophthalmic surgery. The company will release its financial results March 8, which may ignite investor interest, anticipating positive results.

Don’t forget to follow @INN_LifeScience for real-time updates!

Data for 5 Top NASDAQ Stocks articles is retrieved Friday at 1:30 p.m. EST through The Globe and Mail’s market data filter. Only companies with a market capitalization greater than $50 million and lower than $500 million prior to the week’s gains are included. Companies within the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors are considered.

Securities Disclosure: I, Gabrielle Lakusta, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

**This article is updated weekly, scroll to the top for the most recent information**

5 Top NASDAQ Biotech Stocks: Cerecor in the Lead This Week

By Gabrielle Lakusta, February 25, 2018

This past week the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index (INDEXNASDAQ:NBI) had a minor decrease of 1.32 percent to 3,434.8 points. Year-to-date, the NBI had increased 4.3 percent as of 1:30 p.m. EST Friday (February 23). 

Many of the companies on the list this week work are highly immuno-oncology (I/O) focused—except for the first on the list—and most of them have no recent company news, meaning other information is triggering the gains.

On that note, the top 5 biotech stocks to make the most gains last week include:

• Cerecor (NASDAQ:CERC)
• Agenus (NASDAQ:AGEN)
• Lianluo Smart (NASDAQ:LLIT)
• Compugen (NASDAQ:CGEN)
• NantKwest (NASDAQ:NK)

Here’s a closer look at those companies to see what moved their share prices.

Cerecor

Cerecor is trying to create medicine for some of the global top sources of time lost to disabilities, such as mental and behavioural disorders, focusing on the CNS. Big news for the company—likely why the company’s shares grew the most over the past week—was an announcement to acquire Avadel Pharmaceuticals’ (NASDAQ:AVDL) pediatric assets.

“The acquisition of Avadel’s pediatric assets solidifies our base business while providing multiple avenues for future growth,” said Steven Boyd, a director of Cerecor and Chief Investment Officer of its majority stockholder, Armistice Capital, LLC. “Importantly, our newfound scale should enable non-dilutive investment in our broad, innovative pipeline creating value for both patients and stockholders.”

This is the second acquisition in the past four months, the first being with TRx Pharmaceuticals in November.

Over last week’s trading period, shares of  Cerecor increased by 44.81 percent to reach $4.43 at the time of writing.

Agenus

I/O company Agenus is developing treatments to benefit cancer patients by engaging their immune system, and cancer vaccines. The company has collaborations with Merck (NYSE:MRK) and Incyte (NASDAQ:INCY) to discover and develop multiple checkpoint antibodies.

Its share price could be spiking from interest in the I/O market, especially because one of Agenus’ collaborators, Merck, announced another acquisition to strengthen and expand its own I/O market. Investors may be looking into other companies Merck is involved with, as the I/O market is expected to produce annual revenues between $25 billion and $40 billion by 2020, according to a 2017 report from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development.

Agenus’ share price increased 36.16 percent to reach $4.97  as of the time of writing.

Lianluo Smart

This medical device company develops, markets and sells multiple devices in China. One of the devices is a portable anti-air pollution device, and another, the smart ecosystem platform, combines online business, sharing, device management and more through certain smart phones.

Without any recent news it’s hard to explain why the share price has risen so substantially in the past week. In November, Lianluo Smart announced a plan to sell its subsidiary Beijing Dehaier Medical Technology, the company anticipated the sale to be worth RMB 10 million ($1.58 million, according to XE currency converter).

Lianluo Smart’s share price rose 29.02 percent to reach $3.42 at the time of writing.

Compugen

This company has a unique broadly applicable predictive drug discovery infrastructure to advance their therapeutic pipeline—mainly early stage I/O programs to eradicate cancer. Last week, the company released their fourth quarter and full 2017 year results, without any products on the market the company didn’t have sales to report. However, share prices may have increased from investors taking note of updates the company released on Bayer (ETR:BAYN) continuing to advance their CGEN-15001T program, which they’re in the late pre-clinical stage of development. CGEN-15001T is a membrane bound protein and studies are testing it’s immune function, which has showed capability of inhibiting T cell activation.

Compugen’s share price increased 26.85 percent over last week’s trading period to reach $3.42 at the time of writing.

NantKwest

Another I/O company NantKwest is a clinical-stage company develop therapies for the immune system to inhibit the use of natural killer cells to treat cancer, infectious diseases and inflammatory diseases. Mid-February the company announced the first dosing of HER2.taNK (car-natural killer) cell therapy in Glioblastoma for Phase I clinical study. This may have been what spiked investors interest to increase the overall share price.

NantKwest’s share price increased 23.58 percent over last week’s trading period to reach $4.78 at the time of writing. The increase is ultimately high proving the companies on the list this week have done well for the biotech market compared with past weeks where the weekly percentage change was overall lower.

Don’t forget to follow @INN_LifeScience for real-time updates!

Data for 5 Top NASDAQ Stocks articles is retrieved Friday at 1:30 p.m. EST through The Globe and Mail’s market data filter. Only companies with a market capitalization greater than $50 million and lower than $500 million prior to the week’s gains are included. Companies within the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors are considered.

Securities Disclosure: I, Gabrielle Lakusta, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.