Looking for the best pharma stocks to invest in today? One of the biggest gainers by far is Cascadian Therapeutics, which, with a current share price of $10.09 USD, has been soaring with a 24-hour increase of over 70%. This brings Cascadian Therapeutics’ market cap to $508.1M USD
This is a huge jump from closing time yesterday when the price sat at $5.88 USD. The best thing is that the current price is holding, unlike many overnight spikes which almost immediately begin to decrease as investors sell off. It also marks Cascadian’s highest 52-week point by a wide margin; stocks were valued at $4.26 this time last year, and have fluctuated very little in the months between.
Image: Yahoo Finance
What’s going on?
The rise is undoubtedly linked to a merger agreement between Seattle Genetics (NASDAQ:SGEN) and Casacadian Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CASC) which was announced by the two companies earlier today. The agreement sees Seattle Genetics pay $10 in cash per share of Cascadian, which amounts to about $614 million USD. According to a statement, both companies ‘unanimously’ agreed to the merger.
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Cascadian is currently engaged in a medical trial titled HER2CLIMB, which is investigating the use of the oral drug tucatinib in the treatment of HER2+ breast cancer. Tucatinib has been investigated before in combination with other cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and was seen to have ‘clinical activity’, which is a good sign. By acquiring Cascadian, Seattle Genetics are enhancing their own late-stage drug pipeline with tucatinib, which they say is a ‘potentially best-in-class’ TKI (the type of drug tucatinib is).
Seattle Genetics also seem enthusiastic about continuing the development of tucatinib, potentially beyond treatment of breast cancer and into other tumor types as well.
President and CEO of Cascadian Scott D. Myers said of the deal: “This agreement represents a very positive outcome for patients with HER2-expressing cancers, our employees and for our stockholders,” also adding that Seattle has the commercial strength to ‘more fully realize the potential of tucatinib.”
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Should I invest?
Investing now would be more of a long-term decision; today’s rise has already occurred and leveled out. However, as stated in the merger comments above, there is a great deal of potential between the two companies as further development of tucatinib is almost certainly on the cards. In addition, analysts believe Cascadian’s stock will continue to rise throughout the year. Things are looking good.
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