ASCO® 2021 SmidCap Biopharma Investor Guide

(Main text of this blog post last updated 5/27/21)

(6/4/21 - Click here for the updated Investor Hub Forum post that includes links to ASCO21 Posters.)

(For our most comprehensive and up-to-date ASCO21 investor info, including a possible trading strategy from abstract data, and our ASCO21 smid-cap Big-Movers predictions, click here for our BPIQ ASCO21 Investor Hub forum post (BPIQ Pro or free 30 day trial required - click here to sign up and get access)

The annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO21) is being held this year from June 4-8, 2021. With over 40,000 registrants, the ASCO® annual meeting is one of the largest biopharmaceutical conferences of the year (https://conferences.asco.org/am/meeting-demographics). Usually, it is held at Chicago's McCormick Place. This year, like last year, it is being held virtually due to the pandemic. The key dates for this year's conference are shown in FIG. 1. In this virtual event, all of the posters will be released on June 8, 2021 at 9AM EST. Thus, we believe many of those posters will be publicly available to investors, even those who have not registered for ASCO21, on company web sites shortly thereafter.

FIG. 1 ASCO21 Key dates (https://www.asco.org/about-asco/press-center/pr-professionals)

Every year, upon abstract release and as a result of presentations at the conference, some biopharma stocks move significantly because they report important clinical trial updates. As experienced biopharma investors understand, the value of a biopharma company is based in large part on the value of its clinical assets. This value takes into account the likelihood of success of the clinical assets of the underlying company in successfully completing clinical trials. An update to a clinical trial that shows some positive results in safety and especially efficacy, can increase the chance of success for that trial, which increases the value of the asset and the underlying company. The converse is true as well, for disappointing results.

Positive clinical trial results in a single trial can have a significant impact on the underlying stock price. This is especially true for biopharma companies with market caps under $5 billion, who typically have far less clinical and approved assets than larger companies, and thus whose valuation can be more affected by a single drug candidate and trial. The clinical assets of these micro, small and mid-cap cancer biopharma companies are a primary driver for the development of future cancer therapies.

With respect to ASCO21 and biomedical conferences in general, a big challenge for investors is to identify in advance, companies that are reporting significant clinical trial updates at the conference. Many presentations provide less significant information with respect to company valuation (e.g. preclinical results or clinical trial design). At BiopharmIQ (BPIQ.com; "BPIQ") we oversee a database of information about clinical assets and their upcoming clinical trial and other catalyst events for virtually every biopharma company with a market cap of between $100M and $5B, which for convenience in this article, we will refer to as smid-cap biopharma companies. Currently, our database has over 500 smid-cap biopharma companies. Our goal at BPIQ is to provide information and education on smid-CAP biopharma companies to level the playing field for all investors, whether retail, professional or institutional.

To this end, our team updated and scoured through our BPIQ database to identify biopharma companies that are presenting clinical trial updates at ASCO21. Table 1 (provided at the end of this article) lists those companies in our BPIQ database that are presenting clinical update(s) at ASCO21. Table 1 provides not only the drug candidate name, but the indication, clinical phase, technology, and target. Also included are links for the clinical trial, abstract, and associated press releases. See our forum post on BPIQ.com (free trial subscription required) to see information regarding the time/date for any oral presentation or separate investor event.

It Is noteworthy that less than 1/2 of the ASCO21 clinical updates are for small molecule drug candidates. Over 1/2 of these biopharma clinical updates relate to biologics (i.e. proteins, antibodies and cell therapies). Furthermore, over 1/2 of the presentations relate to Phase 1, 1b or 1/2 data, which is not surprising based on the normal attrition of drug candidates through the clinical trial process. The most common cancer sub-indications for the updates are Non-small Cell Lung Cancer, Multiple Myeloma, HPV16+ Cancer, and Breast Cancer, highlighting the current focus of smidCAP cancer biopharma companies. There are also a large number of basket trials to be presented at ASCO21. The most common targets for the updates are EGFR, PD-1, and CD8+. For investors, this information provides a valuable insight into cancer subtypes that remain an unmet need that biopharma companies believe they can meet, and are having some success meeting, at least in pre-clinical and early stage clinical trials.

ASCO21 abstracts were released on May 19, 2021. The stock price of a number of smidCAP biopharma companies moved more than 10% based on information in the abstract or an associated press release. Table 2A (see bottom of article) shows the stocks and stock price move for the smid-cap ASCO21 stocks that moved at least 10% higher. Table 2B shows the stocks and stock price move for the smid-cap ASCO21 stocks that decreased by at least 5% since the ASCO abstracts (and associated press release) were made public.

Table 2A

BPIQ.com largest magnitude positive mover smidCAP biopharma companies since ASCO21 abstract data release**

Table 2B

BPIQ.com largest magnitude negative mover smidCAP biopharma companies since ASCO21 abstract data release**

**stock price move between close May 14, 2021 and close May 26, 2021

Further analysis of the stock move data since abstracts were released revealed some trading strategies that would have worked great based on ASCO21 smid-cap stock moves from abstract release. For more details on these strategies, and our most comprehensive and up-to-date info, and disclosure of some of the most impactful smid-cap ASCO21 companies, click here for our BPIQ ASCO21 Investor Hub forum post (free 30 day trial required).

The next big question for biopharma investors with respect to ASCO21, is which stocks are likely to move upon the release of the posters on June 4, or at an oral presentation or associated investor meeting for ASCO21. For example, PDSB announced that data from more patients will be presented at the ASCO oral presentation on the NCI-sponsored trial (PDSB press release 5/20/21) (See our free blog post on PDSB here). We analyzed the ASCO abstracts and press releases and identified a number of ASCO21 presentations from smid-cap companies that are most likely to move their corresponding stock significantly higher or lower (our Big-Mover analysis). We include our most comprehensive and up-to-date Big-Mover analysis and other ASCO21 information in our ASCO21 Investor Hub forum post here on bpiq.com. Furthermore, you can use our BPIQ.com database to learn more about any of the drug candidates in these presentations, including mechanism of action, drug history, and more! We plan to update our database with the ASCO posters as they become available. Click here to try 30-days risk-free for full access to our full ASCO21 Investor Hub forum post and our database of information about these drug candidates.

We hope that you found this blog post to provide an interesting snapshot into the smid-cap biopharma companies that are developing some of our most exciting future cancer medicines. Likely some of these drug candidates will eventually be approved and will transform cancer care for certain cancers. For investors, these companies represent an exciting opportunity for further diligence and possible investment.

Faith Smalley, Dominic Vacchiano, and Manny Vacchiano

Amp Biotech Research (BiopharmIQ - BPIQ.com)

(Click here for our previous (5/20/21) ASCO21 free blog article.)

Table 1.

BPIQ.com smidCAP biopharma companies presenting clinical updates at ASCO21

*Phase for data in abstract. The clinical asset may be in a further advanced stage of clinical trials.