Andreas Halvorsen (Trades, Portfolio), chief investment officer of Viking Global Investors, disclosed a stake in Amylyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. (AMLX, Financial) late last week.
As a former protégé of Tiger Management’s Julian Robertson (Trades, Portfolio), the guru's Greenwich, Connecticut-based hedge fund takes a long-term, research-intensive approach to investing. The firm selects stocks based on its understanding of the company’s fundamentals, business model and management team, while also taking cyclical and secular industry trends into consideration.
According to Real-Time Picks, a Premium GuruFocus feature, Halvorsen invested in 7.17 million shares of the newly public Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company on Jan. 11, allocating 0.40% of the equity portfolio to the stake. The stock traded for an average price of $20.08 per share on the day of the transaction.
The clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, which specializes in developing therapies for treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other neurodegenerative diseases, has a $1.06 billion market cap; its shares were trading around $18.98 on Tuesday.
Since its initial public offering on Jan. 7, the stock has gained nearly 5%.
The 10 million-share offering, which was priced at $19 per share, closed on Jan. 11.
The company aims to treat ALS by addressing the death of neurons. Amylyx’s drug, called AMX0035, is comprised of two small molecules that each take a different approach to pathways associated with neuronal survival, allowing the neurons to live longer.
Following promising, statistically significant results from a placebo-controlled Phase 2 study of the treatment, Amylyx submitted a New Drug Application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in November 2021. In late December, the federal agency granted AMX0035 priority review and set the date for its Prescription Drug User Fee Act as June 29, 2022.
In a statement, Justin Klee, co-CEO, director and co-founder of Amylyx, noted the company is “excited about this milestone” and is preparing to launch the drug commercially should it be approved.
Joshua Cohen, the company’s other co-CEO, chairman and co-founder, also commented on the development.
“Our team is committed to bringing a potential new treatment, if approved, to people living with ALS as efficiently as possible, as each moment counts,” he said.
On Jan. 4, the company announced it submitted a marketing authorization application for AMX0035 with the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use. The drug is also awaiting approval in Canada.
GuruFocus rated Amylyx’s financial strength 5 out of 10 and its profitability 1 out of 10.
Halvorsen is the only guru that has revealed a position in the stock so far, holding 12.7% of its outstanding shares.
Portfolio composition
More than half of Halvorsen’s $35.94 billion equity portfolio, which was composed of 95 stocks as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, was invested in the health care and technology sectors.
Other companies in the biotechnology space Viking Global had positions in as of Sept. 30 included Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. (DNA, Financial), BridgeBio Pharma Inc. (BBIO, Financial), Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp. (ADPT, Financial), Zai Lab Ltd. (ZLAB, Financial), Inhibrx Inc. (INBX, Financial), Intellia Therapeutics Inc. (NTLA, Financial) and Royalty Pharma PLC (RPRX, Financial).
