Hot Picks: Three U.S. biotech stocks to watch

Résumé détaillé

David Nierengarten of Wedbush examines three U.S. biotech stocks focused on treatments for rare diseases.

Rare disease treatments offer a specialized area of opportunity within U.S. biotechnology. Assessing these stocks requires a close look at the path from drug development to commercial use.

BNN Bloomberg spoke with David Nierengarten, senior analyst at Wedbush, about his investment case for Scholar Rock, Disc Medicine and Hemab Therapeutics.

ROGER: Time for Hot Picks, and our next guest covers the biotech sector. Let’s bring in David Nierengarten, senior analyst at Wedbush. David, thank you very much for joining us today.

ROGER: Okay, I love the name of this because I’m going to Schoolhouse Rock, Scholar Rock. It’s close, but Scholar Rock. What does it focus on? What do you — what are you liking there?

DAVID: Yeah, so Scholar Rock is launching a drug, Isembyld, in patients with SMA, spinal muscular atrophy. It’s a rare neuromuscular disease. It’s really terrible. Affects children. Their drug builds up muscle in these patients who otherwise lose it and lose function over time. They’ve just — in the, you know, first inning of a launch here, and I think it’s been misunderstood with the stock selling off a little bit recently. What’s misunderstood here is it’s really just a mechanical issue of getting patients scheduled for infusions, you know, before they see revenue, and everything else is in place. Patients are identified, payers cover the treatment.

ROGER: All right. Now, it had some issues in Europe on a launch there.

DAVID: Not in Europe. It had some issues in the U.S. with a manufacturing delay related to a contract manufacturer, Catalent, in Indianapolis that just couldn’t get their act together in terms of manufacturing their drug. They did have a backup site, and that’s where the drug is currently being manufactured, and they did get approved, of course, in, in the U.S.

DAVID: Yep. So Disc is a drug about — or company about to launch a drug in a different rare disease that affects hemoglobin buildup in, in, in sunlight, or metabolite actually buildup in sunshine.

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