Altimmune, Inc. (ALT) research, news, and more from GeoInvesting

Company description

Thu, 18 Jun 2020 13:22:29 GMT

Altimmune Inc is a United States-based clinical-stage immunotherapeutic biotechnology company. It is involved in the business of developing products that engage, stimulate and improve immune responses for the prevention and treatment of liver diseases. The firm's product candidates include NasoVAX, HepTcell, SparVax-L, and NasoShield. It also develops platform technologies such as RespirVec and Densigen. The company generates its revenue from cost plus fee contracts and fixed-price contracts.

Research

Mon, 29 Jun 2020 04:00:00 GMT

Altimmune (NASDAQ:ALT) ($10.60, $213.1M market cap, was marked up 20% this morning), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, received funding worth $4.7 million from US DoD to help it move ahead with the Phase 1/2 clinical trial of T-COVID, an investigational intranasal immune modulator for the treatment of outpatients with early COVID-19. The funding is expected to provide ALT sufficient liquidity to cover the entire cost of conducting this clinical trial.

This company was brought to our attention by Microcap Gems, a GeoInvesting contributor that hypothesized a short squeeze could be in the cards in light of extensive insider buying by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners.

Now, ALT expects to initiate a placebo-controlled Phase 1/2 clinical trial in the coming weeks with the data read out slated for the fourth quarter of 2020.

“T-COVID represents one of the few investigational programs that targets outpatients with early COVID-19, with the goal of protecting them from progressing to severe disease and the need for hospitalization,” said Vipin K. Garg, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Altimmune. “Importantly, this single dose, intranasal candidate has the potential to alleviate one of the major concerns of this pandemic, debilitating illness and prolonged hospitalization. Because of the broad protection it could afford against a variety of other respiratory pathogens, we believe that T-COVID has the potential to defend against future strains of coronavirus or other pandemics. We are delighted that the Department of Defense, U.S. Army and MTEC recognize this potential and are supporting its development.”

Besides T-COVID, the company is also developing a single-dose, intranasal COVID-19 vaccine, named AdCOVID with the goal of enabling a Phase 1 trial in Q3 of this year.

It is too soon to tell if ALT’s COVID products will translate into revenue. Even if they don’t, ALT has several other drugs in the pipeline. The company’s last earnings release and investor presentation provide insight into the status of these other drugs.

Research

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 18:59:46 GMT

Altimmune (NASDAQ:ALT) ($9.19, $184.8M market cap; marked up 20% to $11.20), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, was highlighted by one of our contributors, Microcap Gems, last week. In their article, they explained the case of how large insider buying could lead to a short squeeze. The author stated:

“While the shorts are pressuring the stock price, recently a very large and well-respected institutional investor has been aggressively buying the stock. Over the past two weeks, Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners has spent $22 million buying ALT stock, and much of the purchases were at prices above the current stock price. Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners now owns approximately 20% of ALT so clearly, they believe the stock is undervalued.”

This past weekend, Barron’s published a story highlighting Venrock’s additional purchases of Altimmune (NASDAQ:ALT) stock.

Last night, Venrock Healthcare Capital filed a 13D disclosing its 20.8% stake in ALT.

Contributor Articles

Sun, 21 Jun 2020 14:49:41 GMT

Barron’s Highlights Insider Buying At Altimmune

MicroCap Gems update on ALT (See original article here)

Over the weekend, Barron’s published a story highlighting Venrock’s additional purchases of Altimmune (NASDAQ:ALT) stock. AdCovid is Altimmune’s single-dose, intranasal vaccine candidate for protecting against Covid-19. The article includes some quotes from Venrock which explains why they are so bullish on ALT. As a reminder, ALT is heavily shorted stock, so any increased buying could lead to a significant appreciation in the stock price.

According to the article, Venrock said in a statement, “Worldwide access to a safe and effective vaccine for Covid-19 is one of the most important problems we face today. We believe AltImmune’s Replication-deficient Ad5 technology has the potential to meet a number of the criteria the World Health Organization has set-out for the ideal vaccine.”

Venrock further stated “An accumulating body of evidence implicates the nasal mucosa as the primary site of both entry and carriage for Sars-CoV-2,” Venrock wrote. “Intranasal delivery generates mucosal antibodies where the body needs them most, to protect from Covid-19. Mucosal delivery may also be the ideal route for ensuring sterilizing immunity and eliminating transmission of the virus.”

Contributor Articles

Thu, 18 Jun 2020 04:00:00 GMT

Today we are highlighting a short piece by Microcap Gems, a regular contributor of stock pitches to GeoInvesting.

The author’s commentary begins:

When a large institution with deep industry knowledge aggressively buys into a heavily shorted microcap stock, it can lead to a huge short squeeze and create a great way to make money on the long side. This is what we think may happen with Altimmune, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALT). Altimmune, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, is heavily shorted as evidenced by the 60% cost to borrow.
While the shorts are pressuring the stock price, recently a very large and well-respected institutional investor has been aggressively buying the stock. Over the past two weeks, Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners has spent $22 million buying ALT stock, and much of the purchases were at prices above the current stock price. Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners now owns approximately 20% of ALT so clearly, they believe the stock is undervalued.

Please see the rest of the pitch here .

Selected Disclosures on Above-mentioned Stock(s) :

has no position in ALT; The author of the highlighted article has a long position in ALT