Could Spark cure blindness?
Category: Stock Market & Investments
Via: the-irascible-harry-krishner • 9 years ago • 4 commentsAbout Spark Therapeutics:
Spark Therapeutics, Inc. focuses on the development of gene therapy products for patients suffering from debilitating genetic diseases.
The company is developing SPK-RPE65, which is in Phase III clinical trial for the treatment of inherited retinal dystrophies, a group of rare blinding conditions caused by non-sex linked, or autosomal recessive, mutations in the RPE65 gene. It is also developing SPK-CHM for the treatment of choroideremia; and preclinical programs in development for the treatment of hemophilia A and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as a pipeline of product candidates targeting rare blinding conditions.
The company has collaboration agreement with Pfizer, Inc. for the development and commercialization of SPK-FIX product candidates in its gene therapy program for the treatment of hemophilia B. Spark Therapeutics, Inc. was founded in 2013 and is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Even if they succeed with what their doing, it would not cure all types of blindness. And even that is very speculative, as they might not even succeed in doing that.
Full Disclosure: I own shares of Spark Therapeutic stock.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this NV seed is meant to be a recommendation to buy or sell any security.This stock is a very speculative one-- investors in it could loose all their investment!
The stock closed today at just over $51. I believe they are announcing some results in early October. If successful, the stock could possibly go to $70 or possibly even much higher. But if the results disappoint, the stock price could plummet.
Caveat emptor! (Or better yet, don't empto the durn thing at all..heh )
The company was just formed 2 years ago and is already producing miracle (possibly) treatments? That is somewhat unusual is it not?
Well, they haven't actually produced anything definite yet. So, you could actually say the stock at this point in one sense is worth next to nothing. (In fact,these small speculative biotech are "burning money" until they development a drug that works. Investors just keep pouring money into the company with high hopes).
Many investors in stocks are "forward looking"-- they invest before a company has any earnings (& while the stock price is cheap) in hopes it will produce a working drug in the future. Of course its all uncertain-- more tech start-ups fail than succeed.
There are a huge number of tiny biotech start-ups. But I researched this one a lot, and while nothing at this stage is a sure thing, my guess is that the odds of it eventually succeeding are higher than that of it failing. (Of course I could be wrong).
But if investors do a lot of research (and sometimes just have good intuition) they might pick a future winner early on.
Go Spark!
Enoch.