Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of Sangamo Biosciences (SGMO -5.99%), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing zinc finger DNA-binding proteins, rose as much as 11% after the company reported its first-quarter results.
So what: Although Sangamo has no drugs currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration, it still generated $4.6 million in revenue primarily due to a collaboration it signed with Shire last year. Net loss per share also shrank modestly to $0.13 from a loss per share of $0.14 in the year-ago period. Both figures easily surpassed the $3.8 million in revenue and $0.17 per-share loss expected by analysts. In addition, Sangamo is forecasting full-year revenue of $20 million to $24 million, more or less in line with the $20.7 million currently estimated by Wall Street.
Now what: Not to take away from Sangamo's nice one day move higher, but its earnings reports at this stage of its existence are relatively short-term drivers. For Sangamo, all eyes will be on the development of SB-728, which is currently in mid-stage trials for the treatment of HIV. Sure, there are plenty of other preclinical programs ongoing at Sangamo, but everything at the moment is riding on the success of SB-728. Until we get the top-line data from that study, consider everything else to be mostly white noise.
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