ImmunoGen and Juno

I own some ImmunoGen (IMGN) and some Juno Therapeutics (JUNO), both of which are small (under 1%) parts of my portfolio, since they are development-stage companies.

Yesterday I had my article on ImmunoGen published at Seeking Alpha:

ImmunoGen Oversold Despite Strong Pipeline

Yesterday Juno announced it had a trial suspended due to the deaths of 2 cancer patients. I had talked about that risk in my earlier Seeking Alpha article:

Juno Therapeutics: Celgene Partnership and CAR-T Pipeline Value

In one sense the market is overreacting to the news, but then Juno has quite a high market capitalization for a company that does not have approvable Phase 3 results for a therapy yet ($3 billion today, $4 billion yesterday).

ImmunoGen has a very small market cap, just above its cash balances, as I explained in my article. While considerable risk is certainly involved, the bounce to the small cap should be much bigger, if a therapy is approved, than the bounce to a company that already has success figured into its larger cap.

Most of my portfolio is in large cap biotechs that have large cash flows and extensive pipelines, like Gilead (GILD), Amgen (AMGN), Biogen (BIIB) and Celgene (CELG).

I own quite a few small cap and even nano-cap stocks, but only one makes up a substantial part of my portfolio at present, Inovio (INO). That is because I bought a lot of INO cheap before other investors discovered it. I am of course hoping ImmunoGen will give my portfolio a similar boost. But keep in mind it took years for INO to get to where it is today.

My typical investment horizon is 3 to 5 years. Most investors, whether individuals or institutions, don't seem to be able to think that far ahead. It works for me.

Keep Diversified!

You can see all my business writing at www.openicon.com

Initiation of Coverage of ImmunoGen

I previously owned biotechnology pharmaceutical companies working with ADC (antibody drug conjugate) technologies, notably Celldex (CLDX). On April 29, 2016 I bought an initial small amount of ImmunoGen (IMGN), which has an extensive pipeline of potential ADC therapies, several major partners. One of its technologies is part of an ADC that received FDA approval to be marketed by Roche.

ImmunoGen has run into some problems, resulting in a continuing decline of the stock price. I am accumulating it.

I also initiated taking notes on the quarterly analyst conferences. You can see my notes, a list of other stocks I take notes on, and a list of stocks I am currently invested in at the following links:

ImmunoGen Analyst Conference Notes

Companies Covered by William Meyers

Positions of William Meyers

Since I am a journalist, not a financial advisor, I aim for full disclosure. I try to be objective, but there is a human tendency to be biased in favor of one's investments.

Keep diversified!

Gilead, Hansen Medical, Mylan, Immunogen buys and sells

This is my first post since April 17. I simply have been busy. I have covered and taken notes on over 40 analyst conferences. To see what I share go to:

Analyst Conference Notes by William Meyers

My only sale during this period was my Hansen Medical stock, and that was only because it was acquired for $3.99 per share. Not one of my best investments. Hansen never was able to sell as many of its surgical robots as the technology promised.

I bought more Mylan, which I think is vastly underpriced for long term investors. I bought my first Immunogen. I bought Seagate (STX) because it is so bloody low that any good news should send it up, and it recently introduced new drives that should reinforce its datacenter/cloud business. Plus its dividend is now phenomenal.

And today I considerably enlarged me Celsion (CLSN) position. But I warn you: it is not for the feint of heart. It has a very small market capitalization and needs to get some more good data just to raise more cash and keep going. Which means dilution. And of course, in addition, the future data could be bad. If the data is good and the cash can be raised to get it to an FDA approval, however, it could be a great stock.

I had a couple of articles at Seeking Alpha, the latest being:

Gilead Sciences Q1 Key Insights

Most of my portfolio is in larger cap stocks like Gilead. I buy only tiny amounts of stocks like Celsion. On the other hand sometimes those grow to large amounts, as for example with Inovio (INO), which has grown to be near 10% of my portfolio.

Keep Diversified!

And may Fortuna be with you