From Motley Fool: on 11/28
Biopharmaceutical stocks are slated to end the year on a sour note. Apart from top COVID-19 vaccine players like Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax, investors have shown little to no interest in owning these growth-oriented equities in 2021. As proof, the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF has lost a monstrous 17% of its value this year. This industrywide sell-off has also picked up momentum during the waning days of Nov., with an eye-popping 358 biopharma stocks falling by more than 10% during just the past three weeks.
Savvy investors, though, know that steep drops in the market typically represent compelling buying opportunities. Which biopharma stocks are the most attractive buys during this industrywide fire sale? Although there are literally dozens upon dozens of intriguing candidates, Affimed ( NASDAQ:AFMD), Amgen ( NASDAQ:AMGN), and Bristol Myers Squibb ( NYSE:BMY) come across as the absolute best buys right now. Here's why.
Affimed: A small-cap biotech with room to runBucking the downward trend in biopharma in 2021, Affimed, a small-cap cancer immunotherapy company, has seen its shares actually rise by a healthy 19.8% this year. This tiny immunotherapy company has been able to swim against the current this year due to some truly eye-catching clinical trial data.
Last week, Affimed reported that its lead product candidate AFM13, when combined with a dose of natural killer cells, produced a 100% objective response rate in heavily pre-treated patients with recurrent or refractory CD30-positive lymphomas. AFM13 is thus on track to become the go-to therapy for later-line CD30-positive lymphomas; an indication that ought to be worth around $500 million to $600 million in sales per year.
To put these extremely preliminary revenue figures into context, Affimed currently sports a market cap of just $834 million. That's the key reason why Wall Street thinks this stock could more than double in value over the next 12 months.
Despite its relatively strong year, Affimed's novel anti-cancer platform still comes off as grossly undervalued at these levels. The company could eventually generate billions in sales and it stands out as a top buyout target right now. |
