Why was TLSA up >17% today?
Tiziana Life Sciences (TLSA) was up today over 17% today on almost 20x higher than average volume. So what drove the price increase? We believe it was due to initiation of analyst coverage at Zacks with a $7.50 price target. This follows a B. Riley analyst initiation at $8.00 in December. No new news or data was released by the company that we find.
What's our take on TLSA? See the company's pipeline below, from our BPIQ TLSA company page. The companies pipeline looks interesting: It includes an anti-CD3 antibody (directed against certain immune cells) about to start phase 2 in Covid, Crohn's and MS, and a small molecule kinase inhibitor, with some initial phase 2 efficacy data, about to start a phase 2b trial in certain liver cancers later this year. The anti-CD3 antibody asset (Foralumab) is particularly interesting because it is delivered via nasal or oral delivery, which is quite unusual for an antibody, which are biologics that are almost always delivered intravenously. The oral antibody is intended to elicit an oral anti-CD3 tolerance.
Like many clinical stage biopharma companies, valuations have to be considered with huge error bars, especially when their asset likely with by far the highest revenue potential, does not have any human clinical efficacy proof of concept data. Thus, while the valuations at Zacks and B. Riley can likely be justified, there are no short-term catalysts and this stock has high volatility. In fact, it triggers our big-mover volatility index as a greater than 20% possible move many days, including currently, even though there are no near-term catalysts. Thus, admittedly TLSA is an interesting company with some interesting assets that still is a bit of a value play with a market cap of under $300M. However, in the coming months, TLSA is likely to continue it's high volatility and will trend in the overall direction of the small biopharmas, and likely will also trend as COVID trends.
You can search our pipeline screener with "CD3 " in the mechanism of action to find companies in our database with clinical assets or approved drugs that target CD3, a well-known surface marker for certain immune cells. For example, upon a search we find PRVB. which has a BLA under review by the FDA for its anti-CD antibody drug Teplizumab, and an Adcomm meeting scheduled for later this month. Interesting, PRVB, whose stock price is down over 50% on the likelihood of a CRL (rejection) by the FDA, has a volatility index that is much lower than that of TLSA.
TLSA pipeline image from BPIQ.com 4/12/21
#TLSA #Covid #CD3 #Foralumab #Teplizumab #PRVB