Warren Buffett has been a net seller of stocks in recent months, but it's a different story for Cathie Wood. She's been busy scooping up shares of innovative companies for several of her Ark Invest exchange-traded funds (ETFs). If you're an aggressive investor, here are three stocks that Wood is buying that should be on your list, too.
1. Beam Therapeutics
Wood's flagship Ark Innovation ETF added to its existing position in Beam Therapeutics (BEAM +1.35%) over the last several weeks. So did her Ark Genomic Revolution ETF (ARKG +0.72%).
NASDAQ: BEAM
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What does Wood like so much about Beam? The company is a pioneer in the area of base editing, a highly accurate method of editing DNA. Base editing offers several advantages over other types of gene editing, including being more precise and efficient while avoiding unwanted off-target edits.
Beam Therapeutics' pipeline currently features two programs in clinical testing. An early-stage study evaluating BEAM-101 in treating sickle cell disease is underway. A few weeks ago, the company also began dosing its first patient in a phase 1/2 study of BEAM-201 targeting relapsed/refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia/T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma. In addition, it hopes to file for approval to advance BEAM-302 into clinical testing for treating rare genetic disease alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency in the first quarter of 2024.
It's still really early for Beam. There's no guarantee that the company's base-editing therapies will succeed in clinical testing. However, Wood is clearly betting that they will. If she's right, Beam Therapeutics will be worth a lot more than its current market cap of $2 billion in a few years.
2. Recursion Pharmaceuticals
Wood's Ark Genomic Revolution ETF has also been steadily buying shares of Recursion Pharmaceuticals (RXRX 0.73%) for several months. The biotech stock now ranks as the thirteenth-largest holding for the genomics ETF.
NASDAQ: RXRX
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Recursion calls itself "the digital biology company." That's a pretty good description. The company uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze biological data and identify relationships that traditional drug discovery methods could overlook.
So far, Recursion has advanced five programs into clinical testing. They include three experimental therapies in phase 2 studies targeting rare diseases.
The company completed a phase 1 study of REC-3964 in treating Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infection earlier this month. It also expects to move REC-4881 into a phase 2 study in the fourth quarter of 2023 targeting advanced or metastatic cancer with AXIN1 or APC mutations.
Three big partners have teamed up with Recursion. Nvidia invested $50 million in the biotech company and is collaborating with it to accelerate the development of AI foundation models used in drug discovery. Roche and Bayer are working with Recursion to discover potential new drugs.
3. SomaLogic
Wood first bought shares of SomaLogic (SLGC +0.00%) last year for her Ark Genomic Revolution ETF. The ETF added to its position in the biotech stock earlier this month and now owns nearly 12.6 million shares, valued at close to $29 million.
NASDAQ: SLGC
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SomaLogic is a pioneer in proteomics, the study of proteins and how they interact with each other. The company's AI-powered proteomic technology platform can simultaneously measure around 7,000 proteins, more than 2x the capability of other platforms. It's working on increasing the capacity to 10,000 proteins -- roughly half of the number of proteins in the human body.
Proteomics plays an important role in advancing healthcare and life sciences. It's helping speed up drug discovery and improving the accuracy of diagnostic testing.
Around half of the top 10 biopharma companies are SomaLogic customers. Novartis recently extended its collaboration agreement with SomaLogic to 2025 -- a good indication of the value the big drugmaker sees in proteomics.
As is the case with Beam Therapeutics and Recursion Pharmaceuticals, SomaLogic isn't a stock that risk-averse investors will probably like. However, aggressive investors could want to put it on their radar screens with the company's 10,000-protein assay on the way.
