3 Revolutionary Drugs for Chronic Pain

Flexion Therapeutics, Cara Therapeutics, and Nektar Therapeutics have entirely new ideas for how to treat chronic pain, and those ideas may reshape the market.

Flexion Therapeutics (NASDAQ:FLXN), Cara Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CARA), and Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR) may soon offer patients suffering from chronic pain a better option than opioids. Here's how these companies plan to reshape the way doctors treat the 39 million Americans with chronic pain.

Tackling knee pain

Flexion Therapeutics' Zilretta is under review by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a new approach to treating knee pain caused by osteoarthtritis, and positive results from trials suggest it could eventually replace corticosteroid injections for millions of patients.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

The FDA will issue a go/no-go decision on Zilretta on Oct. 6, and data from studies may be compelling enough for a green light. In trials, Zilretta patients enjoyed a median 50% reduction in knee pain, and, more importantly, that pain relief was maintained throughout a three-month period. If Zilretta's effectiveness holds up in the real world, there's a good chance it will win support with doctors and patients because pain relief from corticosteroids typically wears off within weeks -- long before the next scheduled quarterly injection.

Roughly 5 million people currently receive corticosteroid shots because of their pain, and management thinks Zilretta could fetch $2,000 per patient per year. If this estimate is on target, it won't take a lot of market share for Zilretta to be a top seller. 

Recently, rumors have surfaced that acquisition-hungry Sanofi SA (NYSE:SNY) is kicking Flexion Therapeutics' tires. It wouldn't shock me if those rumors are true. Sanofi has attempted to buy Medivation and Actelion in the past year, so it's clearly on the hunt for acquisitions. Importantly, Sanofi already markets Synvisc-One -- a hyaluronan injection used to treat knee pain -- which generates $400 million per year, so it's already got the sales force in place to turn Zilretta into a winner. 

Outperforming opioids

Cara Therapeutics thinks CR845's ability to relieve pain with less risk of addiction could allow it to capture a big share of the 24 million pain prescriptions written for opioids every year.

Instead of targeting mu-opioid receptors in the nervous system like opioids, CR845 relieves pain at the source by targeting kappa-opioid receptors in the periphery of the body. Because CR845 is designed not to pass easily through the blood-brain barrier, it delivers less of a euphoric high than opioids.

CR845 is being studied in hip and knee pain in osteoarthritis patients, and management just reported data showing that it can help reduce chronic itch in dialysis patients.

The potential to elbow market share away from opioids and deliver greater relief to dialysis patients is exciting, but more trials are required before Cara Therapeutics can file for FDA approval of CR845. Because more work needs to be done, it may be a while before this drug makes it to market. Nevertheless, this company's opportunity is big, and that makes tracking its progress worthwhile.

https://www.amazon.com/?tag=shoprite0597-20&camp=1&creative=4269&linkCode=ez

Improving the standard

Like CR845, Nektar Therapeutics' NKTR-181 may eventually reduce pain patients' need for opioids. But, unlike CR845, NKTR-181 still targets mu-opioid receptors in the nervous system to deliver pain relief.

However, it does so selectively. And it's specifically designed to cross the blood-brain barrier slowly to reduce euphoria. By more precisely targeting the receptors and limiting euphoria, it may deliver similar relief to opioids with less of a risk of abuse.

Last week, the company announced results from a trial testing NKTR-181 for chronic back pain, and that trial's data didn't disappoint. NKTR-181 reduced pain relative to a placebo, and it did so without causing opioid-like levels of euphoria.

Those findings sent Nektar Therapeutics shares soaring, but the company hasn't announced its plans to file for FDA approval yet. Instead, management is searching for a bigger peer to partner with on the drug. Assuming it secures a deal, an FDA filing should come shortly thereafter, with an official regulatory decision coming 10 months later.

Todd Campbell

Source: https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/03/30/3-revolutionary-drugs-for-chronic-pain.aspx?yptr=yahoo

These stocks have soared over 1,000% in the bull market

From the depths of despair in March 2009 when stocks were plumbing multiyear lows, the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.33%  has risen like a phoenix to rally roughly 250% in eight years.

Of the 500 stocks that make up the large-cap index, a little over 400 stocks have doubled in value since 2009. Among those, 40 have surged 1,000% or more, meaning that for every $100 invested in any of those shares, the returns today would translate to $1,000 at minimum.

But even those numbers pale when compared with the 10 best-performing stocks in the S&P 500, which have all logged at least a 2,000% surge.

At the top, in a stratosphere of its own, is GGP Inc. GGP, +0.57% a real-estate investment trust, which skyrocketed 7,723% as of Friday. GGP is a prime example of making the podium because it succeeded in digging its way out from rock bottom. GGP, then known as General Growth Properties, traded at record lows, sinking to 25 cents a share on March 6, 2009. before staging its stupendous comeback.

Related: 10 best, 10 worst stocks in the eight-year bull market

Incyte Corp. INCY, +1.18% a biopharmaceutical company which soared 6,633% in eight years, also made the winner’s circle because its shares had been in free fall before it rebounded.

To some extent, the stock’s success is mirrored by the 412% jump in the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index NBI, +0.68% making the index the second best performer after Nasdaq-100 NDX, +0.41%

Dow Jones Data Group

Many analysts have said this current bull market is, to a large degree, a product of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. As the Fed prepares to withdraw its support for the market and further tighten monetary policy as early as next week, market watchers are left wondering where the market will be a year from now.

By Sue Chang

Source:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-stocks-have-soared-over-1000-in-the-bull-market-2017-03-10

This Biotech ETF is on a Tear (BBC)

Thanks to election year politicking and posturing, the biotechnology sector was drubbed last year. Nearly as rapidly as big-name biotech stocks and exchange traded funds (ETFs) tumbled, they are rising again this year.

Take the BioShares Biotechnology Clinical Trials ETF (BBC). From its 2016 peak to trough, BBC saw its price nearly cut in half before surging in the post-Election Day healthcare sector bliss. This year, BBC is up 20.5%, more than meeting the 20% gain required for the definition of a new bull market. Two months into the year, BBC is currently 2017's best-performing healthcare ETF.

BBC differs from traditional biotech ETFs in that it focuses solely on companies that have drugs or products in clinical stage trials. As seasoned biotech investors know, clinical trial results can spark massive gains or big declines for the affected stocks. That is particularly true of smaller biotech companies and those are the type of companies found in BBC.

As BioShares acknowledges, some of the companies that reside in BBC may not have sales and are entirely focused on clinical trial success. These are smaller companies with potentially higher volatility and the impact of trial results, known as binary event risk, is a risk to be considered.

"Clinical Trials stage companies are typically younger, smaller companies which do not have a drug approved, but instead focus on testing their experimental drug candidates in human clinical trials. Successful companies prudently manage their balance sheets through financings and partnerships in order to develop their potential blockbuster drugs," according to BioShares.

Underscoring the fact that BBC is essentially a small-cap fund is the fact that 96% of the ETF's 70 holdings have market values of less than $2.7 billion and almost half of that group have market caps of $600 million or less, indicating some BBC constituents are micro-cap names.

BBC is useful for investors looking to capture some of the potential upside offered by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) trial results without the burden of having to stock pick. That makes BBC all the more alluring in the current environment. After FDA approvals slumped last year, the Trump Administration is expected to take steps to lift some of the impediments in the FDA approval process.

With that advantage, comes the requirement that investors must acknowledge BBC is not a free lunch, meaning it is usually more volatile than traditional biotech or diversified healthcare ETFs.

By Todd Shriber

Source: http://www.investopedia.com/news/biotech-etf-tear-bbc/

5 NYSE Stocks Hitting 52-Week Highs Thursday

The markets stumbled on Thursday, pulling back from their gains of earlier in the week following a decline in oil prices and anxiety ahead of multiple central bank meetings. However, several stocks soared to their new 52-week highs during the trading hours, includingAmerican Homes 4 Rent (NYSE:AMH), American Tower Corp (NYSE:AMT), Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT), CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP), and Domino’s Pizza, Inc. (NYSE:DPZ).

Investors should pay attention to stocks hitting their 52-week highs as the achievement indicates that the stock has momentum on its side as it plunges through resistance levels and technical barriers. Let’s check out the details of this activity in the aforementioned stocks and see what hedge funds think about these stocks.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 765 hedge funds and institutional investors. Through extensive backtests, we have determined that imitating some of the stocks that these investors are collectively bullish on can help retail investors generate double digits of alpha per year. The key is to focus on the small-cap picks of these funds, which are usually less followed by the broader market and allow for larger price inefficiencies (see more details about our small-cap strategy).

REIT Pushes to 52-Week High

American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE:AMH) hit its 52-week high of $21.27 on Thursday. Analysts at FBR & Co reaffirmed their ‘Outperform’ rating for the California-based real estate company and raised their price target on the stock to $22 from $20, in a report issued to investors on Thursday. Shares of the residential REIT have marched upward by 27% year-to-date. The company pays a relatively meager dividend for an REIT, amounting to an annual yield of 0.95%. Out of 766 active funds tracked by Insider Monkey, 17 hedge funds were long American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE:AMH) at the end of the first quarter

Another REIT Plows Through Its 52-Week High

American Tower Corp (NYSE:AMT) is another REIT that reached its 52-week high on Thursday. The stock has forged even higher this morning, touching an all-time high of $118.26 and shares are up by over 21% year-to-date. Analysts at Morgan Stanley reiterated their ‘Overweight’ rating for the company and $125 price target on it earlier this week. The REIT pays a more robust dividend than its aforementioned peer, with the annual yield on its payments coming in at 1.80%. As of the end of March, 40 hedge funds in our system held stakes in American Tower Corp (NYSE:AMT).

Caterpillar Crawls to 52-Week High

Shares of Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) soared to their 52-week high of $81.38 on Thursday. The construction and mining equipment company has been facing the repercussions of falling commodity prices for months, and has yet to experience the benefits of its acquisition of Bucyrus. Its biggest competitor, Japan-based Komatsu Ltd, recently announced the acquisition of Joy Global Inc. (NYSE:JOY) for $2.89 billion, which will stiffen the competition for Caterpillar even further. The company is set to announce its second quarter results on July 26. A total of 37 hedge funds that we track were long Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) at the end of the first quarter, up from 31 funds a quarter earlier.

Rising Commodity Prices Help CenterPoint Energy to Yearly High

CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) touched its 52-week peak stock price of $24.27 on Thursday and has cruised even higher today, cresting $24.64. With its high exposure to commodity prices, CenterPoint Energy underperformed its peers in 2015, but has likewise outperformed said peers in 2016, gaining 34% as commodity prices have rebounded. Out of the investors in our database, 27 hedge funds were bullish on CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) at the end of the first quarter, owning $578 worth of the company’s shares in aggregate.

Strong Quarterly Results Bake a 52-Week High for Domino’s

Domino’s Pizza, Inc. (NYSE:DPZ)’s stock reached its 52-week on Thursday after the company posted better than expected second quarter results. The pizza restaurant chain earned $0.98 per share, above analysts’ consensus estimate of $0.94. Revenue for the quarter was $547.34 million, also topping analysts’ consensus mark of $533.44 million. Shares have gained another 2% in trading today, pushing their 52-week high to $148.35. Shares have gained 33% this year. At the end of March, 32 hedge funds in our system owned shares of Domino’s Pizza, Inc. (NYSE:DPZ), significantly up from just 20 hedge funds a quarter earlier.

By Fashad Saleem

Source:http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/5-nyse-stocks-hitting-52-week-highs-thursday-466155/

.