What happened
Shares of Apollomics (APLM -7.93%) were up more than 11% Friday morning after an analyst initiated coverage on the stock with a buy rating. The clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focuses on oncology therapies to treat treatment-resistant cancers. The stock is down more than 50% this year.
So what
HC Wainwright & Co. analyst Robert Burns initiated coverage on Apollomics on Thursday with a buy rating and price target of $18. Apollomics just went public on March 30 through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger, so being covered by an analyst is a positive sign. The company has not yet released a quarterly report. It has a robust pipeline for a clinical-stage biotech, with nine drugs under development, including six in clinical studies. The company said it expects phase 2 data for APL-101 (vebreltinib) to treat non-small cell lung cancer and other tumors, this year. The company's other lead therapy is APL-106 (uproleselan), which it is developing along with GlycoMimetics, as a combination therapy to treat patients with relapses or refractory acute myeloid leukemia.
Now what
Apollomics is further along than many clinical-stage biotechs because it is a a spinoff of Crown Bioscience, a contract research organization. The stock seems to have solid long-term prospects, but it also has no track record for launching and marketing a therapy. Some of its operations are based in China, so there are risks associated with that as well. Pharmaceutical businesses in China are subject to different regulatory laws and processes, and a cooling in trade relations between the U.S. and China is another factor to be concerned about.
