It’s pharma fever on the stock market today as the likes of Diffusion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:DFFN) and most notably Pain Therapeutics (NASDAQ:PTIE) have seen stock climb by 42.98% and 114.22% respectively. These heady rises come amid positive announcements in regards to treatments and advancements. But one firm, in particular, is catching some attention, and it’s not entirely clear why.
Up-and-coming Akers Biosciences (LN:AKR) has risen 29.85% today with a volume of 58.117M, which is massive when compared to the 3-months average of 1.319M. Could such a flurry have come from nowhere at all? It might simply be that pharma stocks are the order of the day as investors hotly anticipate the 36th annual JP Morgan Healthcare conference, which is taking place this week in San Francisco from Monday 8th until Thursday 11th. The conference will give corporate leaders the chance to explain developments and trends, ultimately with the aim to pique the interest of potential investors.
Akers last released big news on December 21st when it announced the closure of its underwritten public offering for total gross proceeds of $6.9 million. This announcement scared some investors off when initially announced with a prediction of $6 million on December 18th, causing a stock price plunge from 0.395 to 0.1487 on the day. However, prices have steadily climbed since, settling where they are today at $0.1949. This up from $0.1319 a week ago. Akers said that the funds raised ‘will be used for working capital, product development, marketing activities, expanding our internal sales organization and further developing sales channels and other capital expenditures’.
The big question is how long is the race for pharma investments going to last? Evidently, the JP Morgan conference is part of it, yet Pain Therapeutics’ released their news independent of the conference, so there’s more to it than that.
Ultimately it will be a game of wait-and-see, and investors will find out tomorrow if today’s healthcare trend is just that; a one day trend. All that being said, with Akers’ share price rising steadily over the past week, it will definitely be worth keeping an eye on while prices are cheap.
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