Earnings Calendar For This Week, Near-Term Clinical Catalysts, YTD Performance, And More...
Companies mentioned: BBIO, MDGL, VRNA, KNSA, OCUL, TGTX, ARQT, DAWN, APLS, GERN, EOLS, VIR, AUTL, DCTH, CRNX, PODD, HROW, SCPH, SRRK, CELC, CRDF, IDYA, STOK, VYNE, CGEM, NRIX, SWTX, EWTX.
Word Count: 2,152 words, Reading Time: 10 minutes
This week’s newsletter covers a wide variety of topics as I needed to completely clear my mind heading into what might possibly be my busiest week of the year. The majority of companies I have written about on this site over the last few months all decided to report earnings this week and I expect to have a lot to report back. In the spirit of last week’s post I want to make sure all readers know where I stand heading into a chaotic time and also link to some of my favorite work year-to-date in case you are newer here. I now have over 2,500 readers (!) and I am so blessed and grateful for every one of you. I hope you enjoy this wide-ranging update.
A very big thank you to the paid subscribers especially. I am still new to this and figuring out exactly what I want the product to look like week in and week out but I am humbled by your support and aim to deliver 10x the value that you pay to me. Alright, let’s get to it:
Last week was a very encouraging week in biotech! We saw many strong earnings reports from some of the most watched commercial-stage biotechs currently launching new drugs, plus a couple of acquisitions in the sector to improve sentiment.
On the earnings front:
Most of the commercial-stage biotech companies reporting good revenue numbers last week were large cap (>$5 billion market cap) companies like BBIO 0.00%↑, MDGL 0.00%↑ , and VRNA 0.00%↑ but also a few smaller companies did well too, including a company I pointed out last week KNSA 0.00%↑ . Kiniksa was up > 30% after its earnings report! That didn’t exactly make sense to me as the revenue number was roughly in line with what I expected but I guess it confirms my theory that smaller commercial-stage biotechs might just be undervalued across the board!
Either way, we love to see it! In that vein, let’s hope we see some more >30%+ moves this week.
Note: Disclaimer that I have to put in every week now - Substack is once again telling me this post is too long for email. If your client cuts off the bottom, please consider viewing in browser or the Substack app. I hate to have to keep adding this every week (I really don’t feel my emails are THAT long?) but I don’t want anyone to miss anything because of technical issues.4
Earnings Calendar For This Week
Many commercial-stage companies I follow (the smaller ones) all happen to report earnings this week. It’s going to be a loaded week, just look:
Monday Pre-Market: OCUL 0.00%↑ (not really interested in their commercial-stage product but it does mitigate cash burn for a very intriguing pipeline) TGTX 0.00%↑ (it’s not cheap at >$7b market cap but the market is so huge it’s worth considering)
Tuesday After-Market: ARQT 0.00%↑ (can they keep up the growth?!) DAWN 0.00%↑ (not considering it for an investment yet at this time but it is near a 52WL so going to get re-familiarize)
Wednesday Pre-Market: APLS 0.00%↑ GERN 0.00%↑
Wednesday After-Market: EOLS 0.00%↑ VIR 0.00%↑ (okay they were only commercial-stage at one time for COVID therapies but a potentially interesting pipeline here as well)
Thursday Pre-Market: AUTL 0.00%↑ (being long cell therapy companies is almost always death but I’ll give it an open minded listen) DCTH 0.00%↑
Thursday After-Market: CRNX 0.00%↑ (soon to be commercial pending any surprises - hopefully their call will go better than Cytokinetics’ disaster last week!) PODD 0.00%↑ (it’s such a big company now but I still have to check it out just in case something pops out - and the technology has a hell of a moat)
Last week I mentioned HROW 0.00%↑ and SCPH 0.00%↑ and still waiting on earnings dates for those two companies, I’m thinking this week is not in the cards at this point. Honestly it’s probably good - that’s plenty of action for the week as is!
I’m also waiting on an earnings date and corporate update for SRRK 0.00%↑ but let’s be honest it would be shocking if it WASN’T approved…but you never know. It would be nice to hear about pre-launch activities, however. 🙂
Obviously, based on what I wrote last week, the three reports I’m most interested in are APLS, ARQT, and EOLS. Feel free to check out that article to get up to speed:
Very, very bullish long-term on those three! 😬 Full thoughts on their earnings calls and some others by next Monday at the latest. I’m tempted to add HROW in there too based on the earnings call.
What I like about these four is they each have clear growth drivers in the next three months:
APLS: PDUFA target action date of July 28, 2025 for C3G and Primary IC-MPGN
ARQT: PDUFA target action date of May 22, 2025 for ZORYVE foam for the Treatment of Scalp and Body Psoriasis
EOLS: Recent U.S. commercial launch of EVOLYSSE filler line
HROW: “TRIESENCE transitional pass-through approved, significantly increasing addressable market opportunity”, “VEVYE Access for All program expected to drive continued market share expansion in 2025”
Clinical-Stage Catalysts For The Next Two Months
Since clinical-stage companies will also be releasing “earnings” press releases over the next couple weeks here are some clinical catalysts I’m monitoring for the next three months. I’ll be reading these companies corporate update releases for any data drops, granularity on data timing, or possible data delays:
CELC 0.00%↑ will have major data in the next two months that I wrote about below.
CRDF 0.00%↑ will have major data in the next two months that I wrote about below.
IDYA 0.00%↑ will have major data in the next two months that I wrote about below.
STOK 0.00%↑ should be starting their Phase 3 trial in 2Q. Trial starts aren’t usually a big deal and this stock has risen quite a bit since its 52WL but I also think this trial will enroll super fast so it would be great to see it officially enrolling. I would like to write a full article on this once the patients start accruing. I’m hoping I can get a stock dip once more but I might have missed the boat to load in size. 😢
VYNE 0.00%↑ will have Phase 2b data in Vitiligo likely in late July. The stock has gone down due to possible safety issues with their other clinical programs but if the Phase 2b data is clean the stock should see some follow through. Everyone knows they need to raise money but with the macroeconomic environment better for biotechs as a whole hopefully they could find a fair deal that would acknowledge what could potentially be a best-in-class product. I don’t have an exceptional feel for the data - the Phase 2a data looks fairly clean with deeper responses than other products so far and nice dose response but the earlier dataset wasn’t a ton of patients and with topical conditions it can be a bit of a crapshoot. I don’t claim to have an edge here but I’d potentially be a buyer in size on strong data and a clean financing. The trial enrolled pretty fast and if they could show best-in-class efficacy, once-daily dosing, and no potential black box warning needed that’s a strong product profile. We’ll see!
“No Trades” Portfolio YTD Performance Update
On December 18th, pre-market, I published a post called the 2025 “No Trades” Model Portfolio. Since I’m prone to overthinking and overtrading at times I wanted to do a model portfolio that couldn’t make one trade over the course of 2025 and see how I did.
Usually I do a standalone post about it but those haven’t had a lot of interest so I figured I’d tuck it in here (but above the paywall) because I do want to keep myself accountable.
Here’s the performance of the portfolio since publication (as of Friday’s market close):
Even though the biotech market as a whole has recovered some I still think there are really interesting ideas in the red up there. Time will tell. Most companies listed in this spreadsheet are covered in the sections above but those that aren’t:
CGEM 0.00%↑ will be a Q4 story and NRIX 0.00%↑ …I have no idea when they are doing a data update. (Obviously I wish I had left that one off - it has sucked - but I’ll keep an eye on it through the end of the year.)
A lot of people were complaining about the SWTX 0.00%↑ takeout price and listen I get it but it’s still +22% in the last five months. So, hey, I’ll take it.
VRNA, mentioned in the intro, has been such a damn star. It’s obviously gone better than even I thought it could. A lot of credit to the management team there for outstanding execution and how in the hell did the experts miss this drug and the first new MoA in COPD in over a decade? Baffling.
EWTX 0.00%↑ is going to be a 2026 story now but I’m still hopeful one of the two sides of the pipeline work out. You could have bought it cheap recently just on Becker Muscular Dystrophy hopes alone - I’m still undecided if the cardiovascular drug has a product market fit yet . But it went down to almost $10 before a V-shaped bottom.
My favorite idea on the board up there might be APLS…? Still down -40% in the last five months despite some positive news and lately it’s had some very sneaky buying interest. Let’s see how earnings go. But yes I’m also telling everyone who will listen how much I like EOLS and ARQT too. Hopefully earnings don’t make me look like A FOOL. I’m a little nervous, honestly!
Thoughts On Macroeconomics And Summarizing My Favorite Ideas Currently
Occasionally people ask me how net long or bullish I am on the market in general and I feel like that’s a tricky question since everyone’s life situation, risk tolerance, and interpretation of macroeconomic data is different but I’ll attempt to answer how I am feeling right now about the overall market and biotech specifically.
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