What happened

Shares of clinical-stage biotech BioVie (BIVI 0.99%) rose 51.7% in February, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The healthcare company closed out January at $5.07, then rose to $7.88 on Feb. 28. It's worth noting that the run continued after the month ended, with the stock hitting $8.34 on March 1.

BioVie's stock has a 52-week low of $1.33 and a 52-week high of $14.38. The stock is up more than 79% over the past year, but even with the recent run-up, is down more than 22% so far this year.

So what

The stock climbed most of the month and was given a boost when the company announced its upcoming "BioVie Day" to discuss the outcome of clinical trials. The company is working on therapies to treat neurological and neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and advanced liver diseases. The stock was also helped when, on Feb. 14, Oppenheimer reiterated its outperform rating and price target of $12 for the stock.

Now what

The biotech company's lead therapy is NE3107 for treating Alzheimer's. The company said it has reached its revised enrollment target of 400 patients for its phase 3 trial for the therapy and hopes to have top-line results from the study in October. The purpose of the study will be to see whether NE3107 improves cognition on the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive.

The company reported the therapy's phase 2 results on Dec. 7, stating that patients with Parkinson's disease who were treated with NE3107 for 28 days showed clinically meaningful improvement in motor control, and Alzheimer's patients treated with the therapy showed enhanced cognition based on various assessments.

The biggest concern is that BioVie has no revenue yet and lost $26 million in 2022. However, the company has improved its cash position to $47.5 million, so it should have enough to continue operations for at least two years. Alzheimer's therapies have been in the news, with the approval of two drugs -- lecanemab and aducanumab -- to treat the disease over the last two years.

Another factor that may hurt the stock is that BioVie's majority shareholder and chairman of the board of directors, Terren S. Peizer, was just charged with insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 1. While the indictment refers to Peizer's selling stock while he was the executive chairman of healthcare company Ontrak and not during his time with BioVie, the negative publicity can't help BioVie's stock.