Wednesdays With Wedbush: 3 Smid-Cap Biotech Stock Picks

Since the coronavirus pandemic began in early 2020, the FDA's plate has been full with reviews of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. That has put the approval of many other drugs and therapies on the back burner.

Hopefully the worst is behind us. David Nierengarten, Ph.D., a senior analyst covering small-mid cap biotech stocks at Wedbush Securities, is looking forward to 2022.

“You have a significant number of companies that are stretching to get to that next data catalyst, and there is a decent number of them that will have to raise capital before then," he said on the PreMarket Prep Plus segment "Wednesdays with Wedbush." 

“That is certainly weighing on the share price of many of these issues, with the financial overhang.”
The analyst expects the number of data events being reviewed to pick up in the second half of the year.

Companies Under Coverage: In total, Nierengarten covers 37 issues in the sector. He shared his perspective on three issues during Wednesday’s interview.

Blueprint Medicines Corp BPMC is a biopharmaceutical company focused on improving the lives of patients with diseases driven by abnormal kinase activation. The company has developed a small molecule drug pipeline for cancer treatment and rare genetic diseases and has a few drugs in the pipeline.

Commentary on the issue can be found here:

IVERIC bio Inc ISEE is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of novel treatment options for retinal diseases with significant unmet medical needs.

The company is developing both therapeutic product candidates for age-related retinal diseases and gene therapy product candidates for orphan inherited retinal diseases. 

Commentary on the issue:

Springworks Therapeutics Inc. SWTX is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company applying a precision medicine approach to acquiring, developing and commercializing life-changing medicines for underserved patient populations suffering from devastating rare diseases and cancer.

The company has a differentiated portfolio of small molecule targeted oncology product candidates and is advancing two potentially registrational clinical trials in rare tumor types, as well as several other programs addressing highly prevalent, genetically defined cancers.

Commentary on the issue: