An award winning professional equity analyst and this highly acclaimed CEO both detail the opportunity for safe dividends with a high potential growth rate in the US based natural gas production and distribution sector.
Sunil K. Sibal, Managing Director and Senior Energy Infrastructure/Utilities Analyst, Seaport Global Securities
Sunil K. Sibal is a Managing Director and Senior Energy Infrastructure/Utilities Analyst at Seaport Global Securities.
He has more than 25 years of progressive international experience in the energy sector, most recently at Seaport Global, which he joined in 2014 to cover and build out the firm’s MLP/midstream infrastructure research.
Prior to that he was with Citi, where he covered the midstream MLPs and built out the various commodity forecast models.
Prior to Citi, Mr. Sibal held roles identifying investment opportunities in the natural resources and energy sector at Bank of America and Natixis, as well as project development and engineering roles at Fluor and ABB Lummus Global (CVX JV).
He received an MBA from Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Panjab University in India.
In his 2,337 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transript, Mr. Sibal identifies the lesser known value opportunities among stocks in the natural gas sector that feature safe high growth dividends.
“One other name that I follow is a company called Tellurian (NYSEAMERICAN:TELL), which is in the process of developing a Driftwood LNG liquefaction project.
That project got halted during the time of COVID. And since then, the company has made some progress in signing contracts, but it is looking for financing of this project.
This is a multi-billion-dollar endeavor. It has been difficult for Tellurian to raise financing for Driftwood. So it will be an interesting one to watch.
Whether natural gas will continue to be a significant part of the energy mix in Europe or not, that could play a very important role for the financing of the Tellurian’s Driftwood project. So that’s one name to watch for.”
Amanda Brock, Chief Executive Officer and President of Aris Water Solutions [ticker: ARIS]
Ms. Brock has been with Aris and its predecessor Solaris Water Midstream since 2017.
She has spent her career focused on the global oil and gas, power, and water sectors.
Prior to joining Solaris, Ms. Brock was CEO of Water Standard, a water treatment company focused on desalination, produced water treatment and recycling for both the upstream and downstream energy sectors. Previously, Ms. Brock was President of the Americas for Azurix, responsible for developing water infrastructure and related services, and prior to that was President of Enron Joint Venture Management, managing Enron’s global power assets and partnerships.
Ms. Brock serves on the public boards of Coterra Energy, Macquarie Infrastructure Corporation, and is the current Chair of the Texas Business Hall of Fame.
She previously served on the Board of Trustees of LSU Law School and Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico. She was named one of the Top 10 Women in Energy by the Houston Chronicle and in 2016 was recognized both as one of the Top 25 Leaders in Water globally and as a Texas Honoree for Women in Energy.
She also facilitated a White House delegation to Abu Dhabi as part of the Obama Administration’s Moonshot for Water Initiative.
In 2017, Ms. Brock was inducted into the Houston Women’s Business Hall of Fame and in 2020 was named one of the 25 Influential Women in Energy by Hart Energy Oil and Gas Investor magazine.
Ms. Brock is originally from Mbabane, Swaziland, and grew up in Zimbabwe. She completed her bachelor’s undergraduate degree at the University of Natal in South Africa and earned her Juris Doctor from Louisiana State University, where she was a member of the Law Review.
She is dedicated to responsible conservation and passionate about elephants, water and energy security.
In her 1,776 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Ms. Brock explains her strategic vision for her natural gas services business and her dedication to providing safe high growth dividends:
“The Permian Basin is an arid area and every barrel of water we recycle is a barrel of groundwater or fresh water that is not extracted from local water resources. Our recycling activity has an immediate and long-term benefit for our customers, the communities in which we operate, the environment, and our investors and stakeholders.”
Amanda Brock, President & CEO, Aris Water Solutions, Inc. [ticker: ARIS]
email: contact@ariswater.com
Sunil K. Sibal, Managing Director & Senior Energy Infrastructure/Utilities Analyst
email: ssibal@seaportglobal.com
James Harvey, Deep Value Portfolio Manager, Royce Investment Partners.
James Harvey is a Principal and Portfolio Manager at Royce Investment Partners, the small and micro cap investing juggernaut. In his 3,750 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, James Harvey details his investing methodology and details several top picks from his current portfolio.
“First and foremost, it’s a value-oriented approach.
We look to buy statistically attractive stocks at low valuations and typically these low valuations come about as a result of temporary issues. As we’re doing our research, we look for stocks whose problems look transitory and possess some kind of catalyst that we feel can close the valuation gap.
Another tenet of the strategy is that we recognize that, especially in small caps, you can encounter a fair share of volatility.
But we understand that volatility differs from risk, so we tend to take advantage of this volatility in order to try and maximize returns.
We identify names that we feel are suitable for the strategy and we divide them into four investment themes.
Number one is unrecognized asset values.
The second category we label as turnarounds.
Third are undervalued growth companies.
The fourth are companies with some type of interrupted earnings or broken IPOs.
One example from the James Harvey small cap value portfolio:
“In terms of unrecognized asset values, we own a company called Atlas Air Worldwide (NASDAQ:AAWW).
Atlas [Air Worldwide (NASDAQ:AAWW)] has been in business for 30 years.
They own a fleet of over 100 aircraft that are mainly used to transport cargo for parcel customers such as DHL and FedEx (NYSE:FDX), but also e-commerce players like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), who’s a customer.
They’re the largest operator of 747 freighters in the world and they break out their business into two segments: airline operations and dry leasing.
In airline operations, they provide services to their customers under agreements known as either ACMI or CMI. ACMI stands for Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance.
Atlas Air Worldwide (NASDAQ:AAWW) owns the aircraft, they provide the crew, and they’re on the hook for maintenance and insurance but that’s it. The customer pays for fuel and the other costs such as landing fees and any other expenses. The costs are relatively well known and fixed.
CMI has basically the same structure, but they provide the crew, the maintenance and insurance, and not the aircraft. The contracts they have with their customers basically call for guaranteed minimum flying hours. These revenues are fairly predictable, and the company also provides charter services for sports teams and other organizations that want to charter on a monthly basis and just need access to a plane.
The dry leasing segment is where Atlas [Air Worldwide (NASDAQ:AAWW)] would provide aircraft to a customer and nothing else and then they would just get paid, say, a fixed monthly fee for providing that aircraft. Customers would be, again, people like DHL and FedEx who need extra capacity.
Amazon has become a pretty significant customer for Atlas [Air Worldwide (NASDAQ:AAWW)].
The key to understanding the business is that these arrangements with their clients provide for guaranteed minimum revenues that are all predetermined or pre-negotiated so, again, Atlas [Air Worldwide (NASDAQ:AAWW)] does not take on any fuel risk.
As you might imagine, over the last few years, this has been a bit of a booming business. Revenues have grown very nicely. Global air freight volumes are actually exceeding pre-pandemic levels, so earnings have been great and growth has been very good.
But we like to have it in the unrecognized asset category because other investors weren’t as attracted to these underlying assets.
It would be virtually impossible for someone to replicate a business like this today just in terms of the number of aircraft they have and their ability to serve their customers the way they do. They have a world-class fleet of planes. They keep adding planes. They have a network of customers that I would say are top notch in the business. They have unrivaled global operating capabilities, and these are all really valuable assets.
The shares trade at 80% of book value and today you could argue that the assets that they have might be more valuable than ever. It’s tough to get planes, the capacity is tight, and the services they offer are in very high demand.”
Craig Inman, Managing Director, Artisan Partners
Daniel L. Kane, CFA, is a managing director of Artisan Partners and a portfolio manager on the U.S. Value team. In this role, he is a portfolio manager for the Artisan Value Equity, U.S. Mid-Cap Value and Value Income Strategies. Prior to joining Artisan Partners in March 2008, Mr. Kane was a senior small-cap investment analyst at BB&T Asset Management, Inc. from August 2005 to March 2008. Mr. Kane began his investment career as a domestic equities securities analyst at the State of Wisconsin Investment Board in 1998.
Craig Inman, CFA, is a managing director of Artisan Partners and a portfolio manager on the U.S. Value team. In this role, he is a portfolio manager for the Artisan Value Equity, U.S. Mid-Cap Value and Value Income Strategies.
These two portfolio managers detail their contrarian deep value investing philosophy and top picks in their 4,615 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
“…We approach investing with a risk-aware mentality, or a risk-aware mindset.
First, we find companies with superior business economics, looking for strong returns on equity and ROIC.
These are companies we’d like to own for long periods of time.
Second, we look for undemanding valuations, which typically occurs when other investors are avoiding a stock because of some setback in the business.
Lastly, we want to see strength in the balance sheet, which buys us time allowing a company to weather any unforeseen near-term storms as their longer-term business economics are eventually understood better by the market.
Stocks with stronger characteristics on all three of these measures typically have a narrow range of possible outcomes and so they merit a higher weight in our portfolio.
Less ideally balanced stocks will not receive the same allocation of capital.
Stocks with a binary outcome are areas we typically don’t invest in.
So while we are primarily focused on the business, valuation helps inform our view of the pessimism baked into the stock price. Typically, when we’re looking at a company, valuation is under pressure because there’s some sort of fear and uncertainty impacting the price. And rather than run away from it, it attracts our attention and interest.
We use an undemanding valuation that’s based upon a normalization of the earnings power of the company. And that’s the core tenant of what we’re looking for — something is pressuring the business today; something is causing margins or sales to be weakening or soft in the near term.
And we use the longer-term time horizon and different snapshots of valuation in order to get a feel for what the value of the company could be in a recovery or a normalization type scenario.”
One example from their portfolio is Royal Philips (NYSE:PHG).
“This is a 130-year-old company that you might recall as Philips Electronics.
The company was founded back in the early 1890s. Over the last decade-plus, the company has gone through a remake, moving from a conglomerate structure to one that’s dedicated and focused 100% on health care.
They spun off a semiconductor business in 2006, spun off their lighting and light bulb business in 2016 and more recently sold their domestic appliances business.
What you’re left with is a diverse medical business with a large installed base of diagnostic imaging devices — X-ray, CT, MRI, PET, etc. — a number of product offerings in image guided therapy, patient monitoring, breathing and respiratory care and personal health. So there’s a large installed base of imaging devices and a footprint that’s really global in hospitals and clinics across the world, which allows them to compete very effectively, versus a lot of their peers.
We got involved with this stock late last year.
Their Connected Care division, which is their second largest, operates in the sleep business. They manufacture and sell CPAP machines for patients who need treatment for sleep apnea, a serious disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts.
Philips is the number-two player in the industry, along with competitor Resmed (NYSE:RMD).
Treating sleep apnea provides a tremendous health benefit for patients who show immediate quality of life improvements. Treatment is also very helpful in reducing the risk of ancillary complications like heart attack, hypertension, stroke and diabetes.
The sleep business ran into a problem in June of 2021, when the company had a recall of their DreamStation CPAP product because they noticed some of the foam that’s used to provide sound abatement for the product was degrading when patients were cleaning it with an ozone cleaning agent, which incidentally the company does not recommend doing.
There are two important aspects to this recall.
First, there is risk to a potential long-term impairment of the sleep business, which is right now only around 7% of total revenue.
In a very concentrated market with only one other significant player, Resmed, it is highly likely that Philips’ business will recover and regain traction.
Recalls are a recurring feature of the sleep business, with Resmed having their own recall in 2007.
Secondly, there is risk from U.S. personal injury lawsuits. Investors are capitalizing billions of dollars of settlements due to ongoing and forthcoming consumer injury lawsuits and multidistrict product liability lawsuits.
That remains to be seen as litigation is in its very early stages.
However, the company’s market value has declined by over $15 billion since they announced the recall. That’s a significant destruction of value when you compare that versus not only the existing pretax profit and cash flow the rest of the business generates, but also the levels of litigation payouts that have occurred in the medical device industry in the past.
Hernia mesh and hip implant settlements were significant but collectively well below $15 billion in total.
For example, Bayer AG (OTCMKTS:BAYRY), a European life sciences company recently settled a portion of litigation that stemmed from the Roundup businesses they bought from Monsanto in 2018.
News reports have detailed where consumers have been exposed to Roundup over longer periods of time and in some cases developed a form of cancer.
Bayer settled that litigation for around $11 billion or roughly $110,000 across 100,000 lawsuits. If you did similar math for Philips’ potentially affected patients, which is a much smaller number than the existing customers using their machines, you’re looking at a number for Philips which is a significantly smaller number than $15 billion of market value that has been erased.
So, we think the market has overplayed their hand in terms of penalizing the company for this litigation risk.
However, we’re eyes wide open with the expectation that the cases will play out over the next couple of years and the company will most likely settle some of these to reduce future litigation risk.
In the meantime, it’s trading for a mid-teens multiple of our estimate of normalized earnings which are obviously currently depressed because the sleep business has faced this setback and they’re not selling new sleep machines.
They’re focused on repairing or replacing machines for the existing patient base. The stock is trading at a level well below the peer set and where it’s lived historically.
The balance sheet is in great condition, with only 1.3x turns of net leverage, but certainly strong enough to be able to handle any litigation outcome, with a payout structure that would most likely take place over many years.
The stock has fallen over 40% over the last 12 months.
It’s one of the best health care businesses out there, especially given the sticky installed base, importance to clinics and hospitals in terms of how this equipment is used for their daily workflow needs to diagnose and treat patients, and strong margin and cash flow profile.
We like Philips; it’s a name we bought and added on the recent downturn.”
Get all the picks from James Harvey, Daniel Kane and Craig Inman by reading both the 3,750 word interview and the 4,615 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
Jesse Stein, Real Estate Technology Expert, ETF Managers Group
Jesse Stein is the Real Estate Techology Expert at ETF Managers Group.
He is also Managing Director of Everyrealm Inc.
Beginning in 2020, he was Head of Real Estate at Republic, a multi-asset investment platform.
He also is the Managing Principal of Advanced Fundamentals, an index and data analytics firm that developed the Brixx Commercial Real Estate Indexes, which serve as the underlying index for exchange-listed futures and options products.
In his 3,195 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Jesse Stein elaborates on the real estate technology disruption that will innovate the sector and provide years of investment upside:
“Real estate, one of the oldest industries in the world, and one of the largest asset classes, is still, at this point, exceedingly antiquated.
Real estate transactions, which have occurred for hundreds of years, are not too much different than how they were decades ago. The process of buying and selling a home, it’s still ancient, it’s still expensive, it takes way too much time.
Because there are so many moving parts within this transaction, and different firms and different paperwork involved, the companies within this ETF are innovating and disrupting the industry to provide more efficiency from a cost perspective in order to make the entire process more efficient.
Streamlining these manual inefficient activities are included in a number of different parts of the real estate transaction.
So for a real estate seller or brokerage firm, it’s in marketing the property and allowing people to view the property in different ways using technology.
For a buyer, it is in being able to research different properties that are available and to view those properties in ways that you weren’t able to previously.
On the mortgage side, it’s in processing a mortgage origination, and the underwriting and the servicing of the loan.
And then it’s also within the more mundane aspects of real estate transactions — title insurance, the appraisal, the settlement, escrow, closing, home warranty, insurance, everything that goes into selling, buying and then owning residential real estate.
The ETF also includes a number of companies that are providing services for the commercial real estate space.
And it’s also important to point out that this is a global ETF, where approximately a third of the companies are either based in or operate overseas.
So you are receiving exposure not just to U.S.-based proptech companies, but to global technology companies focused on the real estate space.”
Anton Schutz, President and CIO, Mendon Capital Advisors
Anton V. Schutz is President and Chief Investment Officer at Mendon Capital Advisors.
He is the Portfolio Manager of RMB Mendon Financial Services Fund.
He founded Mendon Capital in 1996 with a long/short and event-driven investment strategy focused exclusively on the financial services sector.
Previously, he worked at RBC Dain Rauscher with an institutional sales trading role in the financial institutions group. He also spent 10 years at Chase Manhattan Bank, where he structured investment products utilizing hedge funds and also developed and applied financial risk strategies.
He has been interviewed by CNBC, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, The New York Times, Financial Times, Business Week, Investors’ Business Daily, Smart Money and others.
He graduated from Franklin and Marshall College and received an MBA from Fordham University.
In his 3,140 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Anton Schutz develops an interesting pick for investing in the banking technology sector:
“I think one of my most interesting companies, which is my largest position, is a company called Live Oak Bank (NASDAQ:LOB). Live Oak Bank has a venture business called Canapi Ventures.
And they’ve already had one fund. They’re launching a second fund. And I believe they’re going to have some pretty impressive returns from those funds, which will result in some earnings for them.
They have directly funded some venture companies in financial technology.
One of them was just taken over by one of the large core processors.
So that deal hasn’t closed yet, but again, will give them some capital that they can reinvest, make other investment decisions. They’re the largest SBA lender in the country.
And if you’ve got a good growing economy, business is going to be pretty strong for them.
And one of the things that they need to continue to work on is getting core deposits.
Because they’re such a large SBA lender, they’ll be able to get deposits from affinity groups, like veterinarians. So that one is really interesting.”
For additional investment opportunies in the disruption of the real estate and banking sectors by technology, read the entire interviews with Anton Schutz and Jesse Stein, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
Matt Phipps, Ph.D., Biotech Analyst, William Blair & Company
David Nierengarten, Ph.D., Managing Director, Biotech, Wedbush Securities
Kumaraguru Raja, Ph.D., MBA, Vice President, Biotech Research, Noble Life Science Partners
Steve Brozak, Managing Partner and President, WBB Securities
Biotech stocks have been hammered in 2021 and so far into 2022 despite the focus on drug development that has accompanied the 2 years of COVID 19 therapy development. These biotech stock research analysts have determined the best case for biotech stock investors and have current recommendations for investors.
Matt Phipps, Ph.D., a biotechnology analyst, joined William Blair & Co, L.L.C. in November 2014, after working as a postdoctoral research fellow at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.
In the 2019 StarMine Analyst Awards from Refinitiv, Dr. Phipps was ranked the No. 1 earnings estimator in biotechnology and No. 3 across all industries.
“…For a number of companies with new drug launches or recently approved drugs — it’s been tough for them. They can’t have their salespeople go out and meet with doctors face to face to talk about these new approved drugs. So while some companies have benefited significantly, there’ve been plenty that haven’t.
So there is obviously hope that this year, if we return to somewhat of a normal surrounding environment, a lot of the other companies in the biotech world can start to recover to pre-COVID levels in regard to clinical trial enrollment, utilization rates of physicians, diagnoses of diseases, and other things like that. So there are two sides to the COVID pandemic…
My top name for 2022 is a company called Pieris Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:PIRS). It’s just over a $250 million market cap company. So it’s a smaller biotech company, but they have a very important Phase II trial readout coming later this year, which I expect to be in the back half of the year. And it’s a program that offers an inhaled drug for asthma patients that hopes and aims to be as effective as some of the newest injectable drugs are.
The market leader in asthma is really DUPIXENT and Pieris’s drug, called PRS-060, goes after the same mechanism of action, but it uses Pieris’s platform technology, which is a much smaller protein than the antibody DUPIXENT.
And so it can be delivered via an inhaler, and asthma patients are very familiar with using inhalers daily. So this would be kind of an add-on to that, as opposed to asking them to get a shot every two weeks.
The early data has looked very promising. It’s been in patients with less severe asthma just because you want to start with patients who are a little bit healthier when you’re trying something new like this.
And then, as they move into this more uncontrolled moderate-to-severe asthma patient, which is really the patient who would need this type of therapy — we’re going to see the results from that trial in the second half of this year.
And this is a collaboration with AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN), one of the leaders in asthma drugs, both inhalers and injectable drugs.”
David Nierengarten, Ph.D., is Managing Director and Head of Healthcare Equity Research at Wedbush Securities. He mainly covers development-stage therapeutic companies. He began his career on the financial side of biotechnology at a venture capital firm that focused on early-stage therapeutic and medical device companies.
“What has affected our companies a bit more than the broad market is that we saw a real decrease in clinical trial readouts over the past year due to the aftereffects of clinical trial start delays.
We saw a slowdown in recruiting due to COVID, and the FDA slow to sign off on INDs or clinical trials or manufacturing sites. And those delays in data readouts have affected our companies even more than the perceived threat of increased interest rates over the near term.
Will that change? Yes, I think it will change. It will change more towards the latter part of this year, Q3, Q4.
Then, we see at least a pickup in our estimates guided to data points for companies under coverage. And generally speaking, in the small/mid-cap space, we expect to see a bit of a recovery in data readouts. And if they’re positive of course, that overwhelms any negative effect from a couple interest rate hikes, or again a tightening of the financial conditions…”
The research analyst has several picks despite the biotech stock headwinds:
“Theseus Pharmaceuticals, they are developing targeted oncology drugs focused on targeted kinase inhibitors, one of which is focused in on the GIST — gastrointestinal stromal tumor — market. They started up a clinical trial recently in late-line GIST patients. They have a promising technology, or research programs, that look for what are called pan-kinase inhibitors.
These can really prevent the emergence of resistant mutations, which has affected a lot of targeted oncology agents and therapies. So we’ll see how they go through the rest of the year.
They’re recruiting patients into that study. So we expect them to open up a study in second-line patients after they understand dosing and scheduling in the later-line patients. And that would open up a potentially larger opportunity for them…
iTeos Therapeutics (NASDAQ:ITOS). That is an immuno-oncology company. They don’t have a lot of their own data coming out this year, but they are working on an anti-TIGIT antibody as one of their lead compounds.
There will be data readouts from related companies, the main one being Roche (OTCMKTS:RHHBY), that should be updating data for their anti-TIGIT antibody. And I think that if Roche shows a positive data outcome, then iTeos should do well also.
They have a lot of cash. So they don’t need to raise money in the near term. ITOS’s anti-TIGIT antibody is a potentially better anti-TIGIT antibody than Roche’s. ITOS is developing it in partnership with GSK (NYSE:GSK), who’s helping to fund that development there too. So that’s one longer-term pick that I like a lot.”
Dr. Kumaraguru Raja is a Senior Biotech Analyst at Brookline Capital Markets. Previously, he was Vice President, Biotechnology Research at Noble Life Science Partners. He started his equity research career in 2010 as a Senior Associate Analyst on the Citi Research biotechnology team.
His expertise includes bottom-up scientific and financial analysis on companies across therapeutic areas and across a spectrum of market capitalizations.
“In my coverage, for example, Veru (NASDAQ:VERU) has over $100 million in cash, and they are also a revenue-generating company. But if you look at the biotech space, in my coverage universe, there are not a lot of companies that are generating revenues or have sales.
So in that aspect, Veru is comparatively well positioned. Their incoming revenues help them offset some of the expenses with moving the pipeline forward. And they also raised money last year, so they have over $100 million in cash. And of course, that is going to help them.
Then Arcturus (NASDAQ:ARCT) also has at least two years of cash in their balance sheet.
So some of these companies are well positioned in terms of cash. Whereas others, they need to raise cash. And given the current market condition, compared to the valuations last year which were comparatively higher, they would raise cash probably at a much lower valuation right now…
I also like Cyclacel (NASDAQ:CYCC), with a very small market cap, about $35 million.
They are also in the oncology space. They also have multiple clinical trials going on. And they are developing targeted therapies for oncology, both solid cancers as well as for blood cancers.
They have a drug called fadraciclib, which is a CDK2 and CDK9 inhibitor. Basically, this drug prevents the cell cycles from progressing, so it prevents the cells from dividing. And this is an oral drug that is being developed for both blood cancers as well as for solid cancers. And they have already started the clinical trials and they will have data readouts later this year.
They also have another drug called CYC140, which targets another pathway called PLK1. That’s also a Phase I/II trial that also will have some data this year. And they are trading probably less than the cash that they have. So I like the risk/reward as the pipeline moves forward.”
Steve Brozak is the Managing Partner and President of WBB Securities, LLC.
In 2013, Dr. Brozak was selected as a top analyst in the pharmaceuticals sector by the StarMine/Financial Times Industry Analyst Awards. He also was named to The Wall Street Journal’s “Best on the Street” list in the category of medical equipment and supplies.
“In the past few years, several mostly smaller companies have evolved with new products to fight infections. The first two I would like to discuss are in the antifungal space and they are SCYNEXIS (NASDAQ:SCYX) and Cidara (NASDAQ:CDTX).
Scynexis is developing a new class of antifungal products. Their lead product has just been approved and launched. It’s called ibrexafungerp and the trade name is BREXAFEMME. It has a broad-based potential for treating a wide range of fungal pathogens.
It’s first market indication is VVC, which is a serious issue that affects practically all women. The other company, Cidara, also has an antifungal platform that I believe also will be critically important in the near future.
I am watching this space because fungal infections are a growing problem.
Fungal pathogens have always been present but are now becoming more recognizable. And these pathogens are not going away. As a matter of fact, their presence is only increasing with issues of temperature and climate change. So I would look very closely at the threat of all infective pathogens, and examine very carefully the two companies I mentioned…
I would say that for both SCYNEXIS and Cidara, the timeline is right now based on price, and for SCYNEXIS, also based on the recent product launch.
I think antifungals are important because we’re now seeing that COVID presents multiple problems, specifically around opportunistic infections, including both bacterial and fungal infections.
Here is why. There are large segments of the U.S. population that are Type 2 diabetic and morbidly obese. And sadly, for that population, fungal infections are at an all-time high.”
Read the full interviews with all of these biotech stock analysts and more, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
George Goldsmith, CEO, COMPASS Pathways PLC (NASDAQ:CMPS) developer of psilocybin magic mushrooms.
George Goldsmith is the Chairman, CEO and Co‑Founder of COMPASS Pathways (NASDAQ:CMPS).
Mr. Goldsmith’s early training and experience was a multi-disciplinary blending of cognitive psychology, clinical psychology and computer science. His first company, The Human Interface Group, was a pioneer in collaborative software and was acquired by Lotus Development.
Mr. Goldsmith led the Lotus Institute and developed software and services to support high-performance, distributed teamwork. He then created TomorrowLab, which provided strategic guidance to internet businesses in the late 1990s.
At the same time, he became a senior advisor to McKinsey & Company’s leadership, and eventually joined McKinsey as CEO of TomorrowLab@McKinsey.
Subsequently, as a member of the Young Presidents Organisation (YPO) and its International Board of Directors, Mr. Goldsmith founded YPO Networks.
In 2002, He founded Tapestry Networks, an organization committed to improving leadership performance and governance effectiveness in regulated sectors.
He still serves as Tapestry Networks’ Non-Executive Chairman.
In this 3,683 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, George Goldsmith the CEO of COMPASS Pathways PLC (NASDAQ:CMPS) details his company’s development of psilocybin magic mushrooms as an investment.
“So we’re working with a very interesting substance called psilocybin and developing a psychedelic medicine.
Psilocybin is an active ingredient in what are often referred to as magic mushrooms. What we’ve developed is a synthetic form, so no mushrooms are harmed in our work!
Our psilocybin, COMP360, is a synthetic pill developed to the highest standards of pharmaceutical development. We have FDA breakthrough therapy designation. So we’re developing this as a medicine.
But what’s really different is it’s not just a medicine. It’s a model of care, with people being supported carefully with specially trained therapists who are present during this powerful psychedelic experience.
And what we find with this is that it gives people a chance to see their life differently, to have less negativity in how they see their life and how they perceive events, and also to have less of that kind of rumination and that kind of constant internal voice.
You know, “Gee, this may not work out well…what if I go into this, will it really work for me… I’ve had this really hard life and I’m just going to continue to have the hard life.”
We know people like this where there’s just that inner voice of expectation. And what our psilocybin therapy seems to do is it has people see their world in a more positive fashion, disconnecting them from some of that negativity, and also to have less of that inner voice constantly talking things down, but really taking a more positive and a more present view of their life.”
Get the complete detail on the development of psilocybin magic mushrooms in this publicly traded company by reading the entire 3,683 word interview, with George Goldsmith the CEO of COMPASS Pathways PLC (NASDAQ:CMPS) exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
Todd Nelson, President and CEO, Codex DNA, Inc. (NASDAQ:DNAY)
Todd R. Nelson, Ph.D., has served as the President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors of Codex DNA (NASDAQ:DNAY) since July 2018.
Prior to joining the company, Dr. Nelson served as the Chief Executive Officer of several life science companies through expansive phases of financial and commercial growth.
From December 2014 to October 2017, Dr. Nelson served as Chief Executive Officer of DiscoverX Corporation, a leading developer and manufacturer of reagents intended for drug discovery.
From September 2011 to October 2014, Dr. Nelson served as Chief Executive Officer of MP Biomedicals, LLC, a global manufacturer and distributor of products and services for the life science, fine chemicals, diagnostics and dosimetry markets.
From June 2007 to January 2011, Dr. Nelson served as Chief Executive Officer of eBioscience, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of immunology reagents used in pharmaceutical research.
Dr. Nelson also previously served as Vice President of Global Corporate Development and Strategy at Life Technologies (now Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO), as First Vice President Global Securities and Economics at Merrill Lynch & Co., and as Global Head of Life Sciences at RBC Capital Markets (TSE: RY)
Dr. Nelson currently serves on the board of directors of Tonbo Biosciences Corporation and TCRx Corporation.
Dr. Nelson received a B.A. in Psychology, a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Minnesota and an MBA in Finance from the Carlson School of Business at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Nelson also completed clinical fellowship training at Mayo Clinic in human genetics and laboratory medicine from 1996 to 1998.
In this 1,921 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Todd Nelson, CEO, details the investment thesis for Codex DNA (NASDAQ:DNAY).
“We did recently announce that we signed a strategic multi-year, early-access collaboration licensing agreement with Pfizer.
And as part of that agreement, Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) gains early access to our novel enzymatic DNA synthesis technology, referred to as EDS. And we’ve branded this technology as SOLA, and this is a novel way to create DNA.
Pfizer wanted access to this, because they wanted to maintain their leadership position in the mRNA market.
Our system makes the DNA templates for Pfizer’s RNA-based vaccine. The ability to use our system to identify variants allows Pfizer to build more effective COVID or flu viruses faster than before.
By partnering with us, they are able to decrease the amount of time it takes to get their mRNA-based vaccines or therapeutics to market.”
The remarkable acheivement of Codex DNA is a new type of mRNA synthesis:
“The DNA or RNA that we make using these systems can be thought of in the same way that you would use a desktop printer in your office.
We’ve put the technology together that allows the scientists to essentially print DNA or mRNA.
It’s identical to and no different from the DNA that’s in your body today, or the mRNA that’s in your cells today. It’s a platform for development that allows scientists to make products faster.
DNA is the very starting point for most drugs and vaccines today and it has broad-reaching implications beyond COVID. And now with mRNA-based vaccines for COVID shown to be safe and efficacious, it makes sense that we would use it for flu and other vaccines.
That means we have an opportunity to get these critical vaccines for flu into patients and into the population faster than before. Its use extends to a broad range of new therapeutics that are going to be developed on an mRNA platform.
And lastly, one of the most interesting things we’re doing is using our SOLA technology to store digital information.
This expands beyond health care applications and has implications globally for our planet.
It’s a very ESG positive technology.
Current approaches use lots of very toxic organic chemicals to make DNA. Ours is a water- and protein-based solution that uses biology to make the DNA in much the same way your cells do.
We’ve developed a way to actually store digital information — like a song or a video or a photograph or a picture — in DNA.
As told in “Jurassic Park,” DNA lasts for millions of years and is very stable and capable of storing an incredible amount of information.
The rate at which we’re generating data is outpacing our global ability to store data. DNA is the future storage solution. You could store every single photograph ever taken, every song ever sung, in a tube of DNA about the size of your finger.
We can dramatically decrease the footprint globally for the carbon footprint of data storage facilities, as we come up with sustainable data storage solutions that are friendly to our ecosystem going forward…”
This innovation is detailed further in the complete 1,921 word interview with Todd Nelson, CEO of Codex DNA (DNAY) exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
James Passin, Founder & CEO, Biovaxys Technology (BVAXF)
James Passin is Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director at Biovaxys Technology (BVAXF), a Canadian company with a potential cure for ovarian cancer.
He is a former hedge fund and private equity fund manager at FGS Advisors, LLC, an affiliate of New York-based Firebird Management LLC. He has 20 years of experience as a professional investor, a deep experience of financing and developing venture-stage companies, and has directed and managed over $155 million of equity and debt investment into biotech companies including Avax Technologies, one of the world’s first cellular immunotherapeutic vaccine companies.
He is a director of several public companies, including TraceSafe (CSE:TSF) and BDSec JSC (MSE:BDS), and is a Chartered Market Technician and member of the CMT Association.
In this 3,223 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, James Passin, CEO of Biovaxys, makes some bold promises about his Canadian company’s promising therapy for ovarian cancer:
“Our lead product on the cancer side is a therapeutic cancer vaccine targeting ovarian cancer.
We partnered with a company based in Spain called Procare Health. Procare Health was spun out of Procter & Gamble in 2012. It’s a significant player in women’s health care in Europe.
Not only is Procare Health investing almost $1 million in-kind into our Phase I ovarian cancer trial, they’re going to do the trial for us. And in exchange, we’ve granted Procare Health exclusive marketing rights for the European Union and the U.K.
What’s very exciting about this technology is that the current version of the technology is just a modest but important change from the previous first generation of the technology that’s already been in the clinic under Dr. David Berd’s watch.
And in fact, there have been a number of FDA-approved trials of the first-generation vaccine, not only for ovarian cancer, but also for melanoma, which was based on Dr. Berd’s technology which involves what we call haptenization. We believe that we are the only biotechnology company in the world focusing on haptenization as a strategy for creating novel vaccines.
We’re going to be in the clinic in Europe in the second half of this year with our therapeutic ovarian cancer vaccine. We’re very excited about it because we think there’s a high probability that the trial will be successful.
But equally important, ovarian cancer is one of the top killers of women in terms of cancer.
Late-stage cancer diagnosis is often a death sentence. ”
The new ovarian cancer drug trial has an important distinction:
“On the cancer side, as I mentioned before, in terms of our ovarian cancer vaccine, Dr. Berd’s ovarian cancer vaccine already finished a Phase II trial.
We made a small but significant change.
The previous version of this vaccine had a single hapten, and we’re using what we call bi-haptenization which is two haptens. And really, the rationale is that a hapten is either hydrophilic or hydrophobic.
And by using one in each, the vaccine should interact with the entire cell. And so, that’s why we think that this is going to increase the immunogenicity of the vaccine.
In fact, whilst at the university, Dr. Berd did some human experiments with bi-haptenized vaccines. So we think that the bi-haptenization is really going to improve the vaccine.
But we already have the benefits of the previous human trials FDA-approved for ovarian cancer vaccine, not done by our company, but we have all the data.
So we think there’s a high probability that the trial is going to be successful because of the previous work that was done.
And as I said, there’s already been $130 million sunk into the technology with good results to show for it. So the knowledge we have in the company, in the trial construction and also in terms of the bio-production of the vaccine — like how to make it — all this know-how and knowledge is extraordinarily helpful, and it’s really a huge savings of cost and time.
So we feel that the trial has a high probability of success.
Obviously, there’s always risk involved in any experiment.”
Get the complete information about Biovaxys Technology (BVAXF) by reading the complete 3,223 word interview with James Passin, CEO, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
Jay Venkatesan, CEO, Angion Biomedica (ANGN)
Jay Venkatesan, M.D., is the President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of Angion Biomedica Corp.
Prior to Angion, Dr. Venkatesan served as President and Director of Alpine Immune Sciences (ALPN), which he co-founded as a Managing Partner of Alpine BioVentures.
Previously, Dr. Venkatesan was the founder and portfolio manager of Ayer Capital, a global health care fund.
Prior to that, he served as a director at Brookside Capital, part of Bain Capital, where he co-managed health care investments.
He was also a consultant at McKinsey & Co. and a venture investor with Patricof & Co. Ventures (now Apax Partners).
He received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and his B.A. from Williams College.
In this 3,772 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Dr. Venkatesan details his company’s recovery from disappointing Phase II results towards a more promising drug in development.
“It is really hard to predict how investors are going to look at the overall biotech space, but my take is probably beginning in the third quarter things may start to look better for the sector.
For Angion specifically, we will be in a position to share more ANG-3070 efficacy data from animal models in pulmonary fibrosis in the middle of the year. We will also be closer to filing an IND in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis — IPF — and starting our clinical work in IPF.
The reason I’m focusing on the IPF opportunity is that our kidney study is already ongoing.
We have said we expect to finish enrolling JUNIPER, our Phase II trial in FSGS and IgAN patients, by the end of this year and should have data in the first half of next year.
When we talk to investors, they do understand how successful nintedanib has been for Boehringer Ingelheim, how significant the market opportunity is, how meaningful the unmet medical need is in IPF.
But it’s a little bit of a disconnect for some investors when we talk about our program. We have overlapping targets with OFEV, and we have what looks like, in our healthy volunteers study anyway, safety and tolerability that looks outstanding.
But then we say we’re initially studying ANG-3070 in kidney fibrosis, a condition where OFEV isn’t used and was not extensively studied. That creates a little bit of a question from investors of, “Well, if this looks a lot like it could be an improved OFEV, why are you targeting kidney fibrosis and not lung fibrosis?”
How we started down the kidney path ahead of the lung path is complicated, but we’re committed to doing both.”
Get more details from Dr. Venkatesan, CEO of Angion Biomedica (NASD: ANGN) by reading the entire 3,772 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
Philippe Pouletty, Founder and Chairman, Abivax
Philippe Pouletty, M.D., is Founder and Chairman of Abivax and Co-founder and CEO of Truffle Capital. Dr. Pouletty has a strong background in Europe and the United States (including Silicon Valley) and is a pioneer in the biotechnology and medical devices sector.
As an entrepreneur, he founded/co-founded among others: Carmat, Deinove, Abivax, Pharnext, Vexim — Truffle portfolio companies.
As an inventor, Dr. Pouletty has filed 32 patents, one of which is the second-highest revenue generator in life sciences for Stanford University, earning him membership in Stanford’s prestigious Invention Hall of Fame in 2012.
Dr. Pouletty was Chairman of France Biotech from 2001 to 2009, and has held the title of Honorary Chairman since 2009. He conceived the Jeune Entreprise Innovante (JEI) program to boost the development of young and innovative companies in France.
Philippe Pouletty is a medical doctor, former resident in haematology and immunology in Parisian hospitals, and was a postdoctoral researcher (1986-1988) at Stanford University.
He was the 1999 winner of the American Liver Foundation award. Dr. Pouletty has been awarded Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.
Professor Hartmut Ehrlich, CEO, Abivax
Professor Hartmut J. Ehrlich, M.D., is Chief Executive Officer of Abivax.
Professor Ehrlich is a physician with 30 years of experience in academia and in the biopharmaceutical industry, 20 of which were in product development at Baxter and Sandoz (now Novartis).
He has lived and worked in the United States (Eli Lilly and Indiana University, Dept. of Medicine), the Netherlands (Central Laboratory of the Dutch Red Cross), Germany (Max Planck Foundation, Sandoz, Baxter), Switzerland (Sandoz), Austria (Baxter) and France (Abivax).
Over the seven years before joining Abivax, Prof. Ehrlich, as Head of Global R&D, successfully built and advanced Baxter BioScience’s R&D portfolio with over 50 programs in preclinical and clinical development.
He drove the regulatory approval of key biologics in the specialty areas of hemophilia, thrombosis, immunology, neurology, oncology, biosurgery and vaccines, thereby bringing novel therapies to patients with substantial medical needs.
Hartmut Ehrlich has authored and co-authored over 120 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.
Didier Blondel, EVP, CFO, Abivax
Didier Blondel is EVP, Chief Financial Officer and Board Secretary of Abivax. Mr. Blondel was Chief Financial Officer at Sanofi Pasteur MSD, a Lyon-based joint venture between Sanofi and Merck, and European leader in human vaccines, since 2012.
During the previous 20-year period, Mr. Blondel held a wide scope of senior finance positions at Sanofi, in Commercial Operations and then R&D, where he became Global R&D CFO. He started his career as an auditor at Price Waterhouse Coopers, after graduating from the Commercial Institute of Nancy (ICN), a leading French Business School.
He also holds a master in finance and accounting degree from University of Nancy, as well as a Professional Certificate in Finance and Accounting (DESCF).
These three top executives from Abivax SA (OTCMKTS:AAVXF) explain the tremendous upside in their company in this 2,796 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
“I think we should be clear that ABX464 carries more than 90% of the value of Abivax and is, in our view, more than a treatment for ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.
Based on very promising Phase IIa results in rheumatoid arthritis, ABX464 is a compound that can potentially be used for the treatment of a number of chronic inflammatory diseases.
Annual pharmaceutical revenues in this group of diseases are currently adding up to over $100 billion in the G7 countries, meaning the U.S., Japan and the five largest European countries.
Revenues for moderate to severe ulcerative colitis — biologics, JAKs and S1P — alone were around $6 billion per year in G7 countries in 2021 and are expected to grow to more than $10 billion by 2026, the year we are planning to launch our product on the market.
For Crohn’s disease, a disease similar to ulcerative colitis in many ways, the market is currently at around $13 billion in pharmaceutical sales, and expected to grow by about 15% by 2026.
Rheumatoid arthritis, another chronic inflammatory disease that we are tackling, is by itself already around $22 billion in pharmaceutical sales.
While our current priority is clearly the initiation of the pivotal Phase III program in ulcerative colitis, Abivax plans to ultimately address all three indications, with the launch of a Phase III study in ulcerative colitis, a Phase IIb in rheumatoid arthritis and a pivotal Phase IIb in Crohn’s disease.
These three diseases represent, by the time ABX464 gets to the market in 2026, a potential of roughly $50 billion per year in G7 pharmaceutical sales.”
Get the complete strategy for increasing shareholder value in Abivax (AAVXF) by reading the entire 2,796 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
Bernard Gilly, Ph.D., CEO, Gensight Biologics (GSGTF)
Bernard Gilly, Ph.D., one of GenSight Biologics’ founders, has served as the Chief Executive Officer of the company since its creation.
From creation through to 2016, Dr. Gilly served as Chairman of the board of directors. From 2011 through 2014, he served as Chief Executive Officer at Pixium Vision, during which time he also served as non-executive Chairman of the board of directors.
In addition, he currently serves on the boards of Prophesee S.A. (formerly Chronocam) and TISSIUM (formerly Gecko Biomedical).
From 2005 to 2009, he founded and was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fovea Pharmaceuticals S.A., or Fovea, a privately funded biotech company, which was later acquired by Sanofi.
He then became Senior Vice President of the Ophthalmology Division of Sanofi and served in that role until March 2012. Prior to Fovea, Dr. Gilly was a partner at Sofinnova Partners S.A.S. from December 2000 to November 2005.
From January 1992 to October 2000, he was Chief Executive Officer of Transgene S.A., a company listed on the Nasdaq and the Nouveau Marche of Euronext Paris, France. Dr. Gilly received an engineering degree from Ecole Nationale d’Agronomie and a Ph.D. from Universite de Rennes.
In this 2,22o word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Dr. Bernard Gilly develops the investment thesis for GenSight Biologics.
“GenSight is a gene therapy company leveraging two technology platforms.
One is a technology that, for the first time ever, allows us to target mitochondrial diseases. And the second technology is much better known. This is a technology that has been used at the bench by neurobiologists since the early 2000s.
It’s called optogenetics, and we are the first one to bring this technology to patients in an attempt to restore their vision.
The very first product that we are developing is called LUMEVOQ. At the time of the last interview, I think it was still called GS010, but now it has a commercial name.
This product addresses a mitochondrial disease of the retina called Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy, LHON. Importantly, as LUMEVOQ has proven its efficacy in LHON, the underlying technology platform allows GenSight to potentially address a number of other mitochondrial diseases affecting the retina but also elsewhere in the central nervous system.
So we now have a technology that demonstrates the efficacy of LUMEVOQ and a technology that could apply to a wide range of other mitochondrial diseases.”
Dr. Bernard Gilly discusses the exciting development of European drug approval:
“We have completed three clinical trials — three pivotal trials, Phase III trials.
We have filed for approval in Europe, and we are expecting approval by the European Medicines Agency by the end of this year. We are now organizing the commercial infrastructure in Europe to launch the product very early in 2023.”
GenSight Biologics SA (GSGTF) has created hope for this devastating medical condition:
“One important thing is that with LUMEVOQ moving forward, we have launched a fairly large compassionate use program to allow patients who are affected by LHON and losing their sight to access LUMEVOQ treatment. In the U.S., we have an expanded access IND program, which is delivering really well. In December 2021, Dr. Sean Donahue presented remarkably positive results from eight patients taking part in the expanded access program at the American Academy of Ophthalmology Conference and similar results are being observed in Europe.
In France, we also have the capacity under this compassionate program to invoice the product to the hospital. And that’s an interesting benchmark for the pricing we may have after the approval. At this moment, we are pricing it at EUR700,000 per treatment, which is really important in terms of the future revenue of the company.”
Get the complete detail on all the recent drug development from GenSight Biologics SA (GSGTF) by reading the entire 2,22o word interview with Dr. Bernard Gilly, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
Bernard Gilly, Ph.D., Co-Founder & CEO
GenSight Biologics
74, rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine
75012 Paris
France
www.gensight-biologics.com
