Shares of Caribou Biosciences Inc. (CRBU, Financial) are up more than 46% since last Thursday, leading the way for several beaten-down biotechs that also rose after investors got a look at the presentations the companies will be making at next month’s European Hematology Association meeting.
Berkeley, California-based Caribou currently trades at about $9.70, jumping after the first efficacy data from the trial of its allogeneic anti-CD19 project showed a 100% remission rate among five lymphoma patients, including four complete responses. Relapses have been a big problem for similar treatments from Allogene Therapeutics Inc. (ALLO, Financial), CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP, Financial) and Precision BioSciences Inc. (DTIL, Financial).
Chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapies are part of the next generation of "living" drugs designed to treat cancer. Now Caribou Biosciences will start a Phase 1 trial with its off-the-shelf allogeneic anti-CD19, genome-edited CAR-T cell therapy for patients with relapsed/refractory B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Caribou went public last July at $16 a share and reached more than $32 a month later before beginning a slow descent. According to Yahoo Finance, the company was rated a buy or strong buy even before the promising study results, with an average 12-month target of nearly $30 and a high of $39.
Wall Street also liked what it heard from foreign micro-caps Gracell Biotechnologies Inc. (GRCL) and Autolus Therapeutics PLC (AUTL, Financial). Shares of Gracell, a Chinese company, rose about 30% in the past week on the strength of the first blush of data that will be presented at the meeting. The company’s poster shows three remissions in the first three B-cell lymphoma patients receiving the company’s medication.
Meanwhile, investors in U.K.-based Autolus saw the value of their shares climb about 25% to $2.76 on upcoming news about the company’s unique approach to treating T-cell lymphoma.
Other companies scheduled to make oncology presentations at the EHA meeting are Mustang Bio Inc. (MBIO, Financial) and ADC Therapeutics SA (ADCT, Financial).
