Ever since the human genome was mapped nearly 20 years ago, an explosion of scientific discovery has been unleashed with many hundreds of public and private companies, universities, and research institutes working to better understand life and cure disease.
According to the National Institute of Health, the cost to sequence a genome has fallen from $10 million in 2007 to under $1,000 today. And this economic access has fueled the rise of more scientists seeking to do more research that wasn’t even thought of a decade ago.
Now, it’s a global R&D race to treat and cure thousands of genetic diseases, to say nothing of the wars on dozens of cancers which may or may not have genetic roots. Along with universities and other private and public research institutes, the competitors and collaborators in this global race comprise over 300 public Biotechnology companies that we have the ability to research and invest in.
Seizing on that massive opportunity in 2017, I began a new portfolio called Healthcare Innovators, expressly focused on an industry that will soon cross $800 billion in revenues. And it's still early in the game to capitalize on what I call "The Century of Biology," where we seek out companies in the thick of 5 major trends...
1) Science Revolutions: One need only look at a few of the recent Nobel Prizes to grasp what is occurring since we cracked the genome wide open and ignited other fields of discovery...
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2006 went to Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello "for their discovery of RNA interference – gene silencing by double-stranded RNA." I am an active investor in and researcher of several RNA-i companies.
In 2011, awards went to a pair of scientists "for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity" and to another "for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity." The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak has made this knowledge critical for vaccine makers and anyone concerned with public health.
In 2018 James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo were honored "for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation." In my Healthcare Innovators portfolio, we are keenly interested in the new field of immuno-oncology (I/O), where doctors can teach a person's body to fight their own cancer.
And in 2020, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna "for the development of a method for genome editing." I believe that CRISPR technology is, thus far, the most important discovery in the The Century of Biology. That's why I always own at least one of the companies involved.
According to the Nobel website, "Since Charpentier and Doudna discovered the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors in 2012 their use has exploded. The genetic scissors have taken the life sciences into a new epoch and, in many ways, are bringing the greatest benefit to humankind."
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Breakout Biotech Stocks with Triple-Digit Profit Potential
The Biotech sector is projected to surge beyond $2.4 trillion by 2028 as scientists develop treatments for thousands of diseases. They're also finding ways to edit DNA to literally erase our vulnerability to these diseases.
Senior Stock Strategist Kevin Cook wrote The Century of Biology (3rd Edition) to help investors profit from 7 stocks with impressive upside potential.
Cook's recommendations in the 2nd Edition of this report soared +205%... +258%... even +477% in just months.¹ The stocks in this report could produce even better returns. Don't delay: The Century of Biology is only available until Sunday, March 28.
See 7 Breakthrough Stocks Now >>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Earnings Power: It's clear that medical care costs and prescription drug prices are volatile issues for people on all sides of the stethoscope. But in the big picture, we have amazing healthcare systems that deserve our admiration.
And insurers will gladly pay for life-saving medicines and treatments before more expensive surgery, or disease progression. A great recent example has been the initial $100,000 cost to cure hepatitis-C versus the 5X greater expense of a liver transplant.
As we figure out more equitable systems, many companies across the medical spectrum also deserve the fantastic sales and profit growth they've created based on superior innovations. Think of Illumina (ILMN) with their million-dollar machines that can sequence an entire human genome in mere days.
This amazing company is also innovating on the cost-sharing side. Just this month, Illumina, along with researchers at the University of Colorado and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, reported study results evaluating the impact of an innovative risk-sharing agreement that opened insurance coverage of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for pregnant women under the age of 35.
Through this partnership, thousands of women gained access to NIPT and the economic impact was minimal. The study showed expanding NIPT services only increased HPHC’s costs by less than 3 cents per member per month. That's a great example of the power we have to provide the best, most innovative care to all, affordably.
3) Living Longer: There's no doubt that one great big generation is getting older and living longer. As lifespans extend, more care is needed in later years, from medicines and therapies to facilities and innovative, minimally-invasive surgeries.
Two of my favorite companies in the latter category specialize in advanced catheter technologies to replace heart valves and remove blood clots from stroke victims. Until we have nano-bots that can be directed to perform vascular procedures, we rely on current bleeding-edge innovations at the crossroads of Biotech and med-tech.
4) Personalized Precision: Next to CRISPR, one of the most exciting frontiers of medicine for me is preventive and predictive care with the massive power of smart diagnostics, often powered by artificial intelligence (AI). This area alone will dramatically reduce healthcare costs as patients and their doctors are given high-tech and automated tools to detect potential problems or trends in one's personal data.
From early, regular screening for cancer to personalized genomic testing across one's lifetime, we have just begun to explore a world where illness can be predicted, prevented and precisely acted upon. A great example is the private company Viome which uses AI to analyze your gut microbiome and prescribe potential improvements in your diet.
5) Strategic Investment: There may be a never-ending debate about the best ways to provide good access to healthcare for all citizens. But one thing is clear: disease-curing pharmaceutical R&D cannot be done without superior access to funding.
Virologist and biotech investor Peter Kolchinsky wrote about this in his 2020 book The Great American Drug Deal: A New Prescription for Innovative and Affordable Medicines. In a June online presentation, part of his course The Business of Biotechnology, Kolchinsky explained in detail how hepatitis-C virus (HCV) was conquered over a 15-year battle of "ingenuity, investment, risk, failure, and perseverance."
You may know the headline story here that Gilead Pharmaceuticals bought a company called Pharmasset for $11 billion in 2011 to acquire their unique pipeline candidates for treating HCV. Prior to that, HCV patients and doctors had already endured over five years of expensive, cumbersome, low-efficacy treatments with terrible side-effects. By 2014, Gilead was curing HCV and making it accessible and affordable.
Sometimes, one small company and the right funding from a "big brother" can change the world. I used to call this megatrend simply "M&A Power." My followers have made serious money off of buying the little company that later gets swallowed by the bigger fish, including these buyouts: JUNO, BIVV, ONCE, CELG, and GWPH.
Plus, when you study the details, you see that the FDA and other government health research agencies also play key roles in medical innovation. 2020 was a historic year for collaboration between all these public and private parties as we battled the greatest pandemic in a century.
And I just finished a special report where I talk about what all this means for Biotechnology investors. Join me in learning more about the most exciting revolutions on the planet.
It's the 3rd edition of The Century of Biology: 7 Biotech Stocks to Buy Now, and you're invited to download it today.
While I'm bullish on the Biotech sector in general, I believe the 7 stocks in this report are poised for particularly strong upside in the weeks and months ahead.
The Century of Biology report has a stellar track record for highlighting great investments. Recommendations from the 2nd edition, which was released in January 2020, climbed as much as +205%, +258%, even +477% in a matter of months.¹
I encourage you to download the just-updated edition of The Century of Biology and take advantage of the most exciting investment industry.
Please note that this report is only available until Sunday, March 28.
Check out these stocks right now >>
Good Investing,
Kevin Cook
Kevin Cook, Senior Stock Strategist at Zacks, is a leading expert in biotech and medical stocks. He provides commentary and recommendations for Zacks' investment portfolio, Healthcare Innovators.
¹ The results listed above are not (or may not be) representative of the performance of all selections made by Zacks Investment Research's newsletter editors and may represent the partial close of a position.
Image: Bigstock
5 Megatrends of Medicine: Profiting from Breakthrough Science
Ever since the human genome was mapped nearly 20 years ago, an explosion of scientific discovery has been unleashed with many hundreds of public and private companies, universities, and research institutes working to better understand life and cure disease.
According to the National Institute of Health, the cost to sequence a genome has fallen from $10 million in 2007 to under $1,000 today. And this economic access has fueled the rise of more scientists seeking to do more research that wasn’t even thought of a decade ago.
Now, it’s a global R&D race to treat and cure thousands of genetic diseases, to say nothing of the wars on dozens of cancers which may or may not have genetic roots. Along with universities and other private and public research institutes, the competitors and collaborators in this global race comprise over 300 public Biotechnology companies that we have the ability to research and invest in.
Seizing on that massive opportunity in 2017, I began a new portfolio called Healthcare Innovators, expressly focused on an industry that will soon cross $800 billion in revenues. And it's still early in the game to capitalize on what I call "The Century of Biology," where we seek out companies in the thick of 5 major trends...
1) Science Revolutions: One need only look at a few of the recent Nobel Prizes to grasp what is occurring since we cracked the genome wide open and ignited other fields of discovery...
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2006 went to Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello "for their discovery of RNA interference – gene silencing by double-stranded RNA." I am an active investor in and researcher of several RNA-i companies.
In 2011, awards went to a pair of scientists "for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity" and to another "for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity." The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak has made this knowledge critical for vaccine makers and anyone concerned with public health.
In 2018 James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo were honored "for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation." In my Healthcare Innovators portfolio, we are keenly interested in the new field of immuno-oncology (I/O), where doctors can teach a person's body to fight their own cancer.
And in 2020, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna "for the development of a method for genome editing." I believe that CRISPR technology is, thus far, the most important discovery in the The Century of Biology. That's why I always own at least one of the companies involved.
According to the Nobel website, "Since Charpentier and Doudna discovered the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors in 2012 their use has exploded. The genetic scissors have taken the life sciences into a new epoch and, in many ways, are bringing the greatest benefit to humankind."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Breakout Biotech Stocks with Triple-Digit Profit Potential
The Biotech sector is projected to surge beyond $2.4 trillion by 2028 as scientists develop treatments for thousands of diseases. They're also finding ways to edit DNA to literally erase our vulnerability to these diseases.
Senior Stock Strategist Kevin Cook wrote The Century of Biology (3rd Edition) to help investors profit from 7 stocks with impressive upside potential.
Cook's recommendations in the 2nd Edition of this report soared +205%... +258%... even +477% in just months.¹ The stocks in this report could produce even better returns. Don't delay: The Century of Biology is only available until Sunday, March 28.
See 7 Breakthrough Stocks Now >>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Earnings Power: It's clear that medical care costs and prescription drug prices are volatile issues for people on all sides of the stethoscope. But in the big picture, we have amazing healthcare systems that deserve our admiration.
And insurers will gladly pay for life-saving medicines and treatments before more expensive surgery, or disease progression. A great recent example has been the initial $100,000 cost to cure hepatitis-C versus the 5X greater expense of a liver transplant.
As we figure out more equitable systems, many companies across the medical spectrum also deserve the fantastic sales and profit growth they've created based on superior innovations. Think of Illumina (ILMN) with their million-dollar machines that can sequence an entire human genome in mere days.
This amazing company is also innovating on the cost-sharing side. Just this month, Illumina, along with researchers at the University of Colorado and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, reported study results evaluating the impact of an innovative risk-sharing agreement that opened insurance coverage of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for pregnant women under the age of 35.
Through this partnership, thousands of women gained access to NIPT and the economic impact was minimal. The study showed expanding NIPT services only increased HPHC’s costs by less than 3 cents per member per month. That's a great example of the power we have to provide the best, most innovative care to all, affordably.
3) Living Longer: There's no doubt that one great big generation is getting older and living longer. As lifespans extend, more care is needed in later years, from medicines and therapies to facilities and innovative, minimally-invasive surgeries.
Two of my favorite companies in the latter category specialize in advanced catheter technologies to replace heart valves and remove blood clots from stroke victims. Until we have nano-bots that can be directed to perform vascular procedures, we rely on current bleeding-edge innovations at the crossroads of Biotech and med-tech.
4) Personalized Precision: Next to CRISPR, one of the most exciting frontiers of medicine for me is preventive and predictive care with the massive power of smart diagnostics, often powered by artificial intelligence (AI). This area alone will dramatically reduce healthcare costs as patients and their doctors are given high-tech and automated tools to detect potential problems or trends in one's personal data.
From early, regular screening for cancer to personalized genomic testing across one's lifetime, we have just begun to explore a world where illness can be predicted, prevented and precisely acted upon. A great example is the private company Viome which uses AI to analyze your gut microbiome and prescribe potential improvements in your diet.
5) Strategic Investment: There may be a never-ending debate about the best ways to provide good access to healthcare for all citizens. But one thing is clear: disease-curing pharmaceutical R&D cannot be done without superior access to funding.
Virologist and biotech investor Peter Kolchinsky wrote about this in his 2020 book The Great American Drug Deal: A New Prescription for Innovative and Affordable Medicines. In a June online presentation, part of his course The Business of Biotechnology, Kolchinsky explained in detail how hepatitis-C virus (HCV) was conquered over a 15-year battle of "ingenuity, investment, risk, failure, and perseverance."
You may know the headline story here that Gilead Pharmaceuticals bought a company called Pharmasset for $11 billion in 2011 to acquire their unique pipeline candidates for treating HCV. Prior to that, HCV patients and doctors had already endured over five years of expensive, cumbersome, low-efficacy treatments with terrible side-effects. By 2014, Gilead was curing HCV and making it accessible and affordable.
Sometimes, one small company and the right funding from a "big brother" can change the world. I used to call this megatrend simply "M&A Power." My followers have made serious money off of buying the little company that later gets swallowed by the bigger fish, including these buyouts: JUNO, BIVV, ONCE, CELG, and GWPH.
Plus, when you study the details, you see that the FDA and other government health research agencies also play key roles in medical innovation. 2020 was a historic year for collaboration between all these public and private parties as we battled the greatest pandemic in a century.
And I just finished a special report where I talk about what all this means for Biotechnology investors. Join me in learning more about the most exciting revolutions on the planet.
It's the 3rd edition of The Century of Biology: 7 Biotech Stocks to Buy Now, and you're invited to download it today.
While I'm bullish on the Biotech sector in general, I believe the 7 stocks in this report are poised for particularly strong upside in the weeks and months ahead.
The Century of Biology report has a stellar track record for highlighting great investments. Recommendations from the 2nd edition, which was released in January 2020, climbed as much as +205%, +258%, even +477% in a matter of months.¹
I encourage you to download the just-updated edition of The Century of Biology and take advantage of the most exciting investment industry.
Please note that this report is only available until Sunday, March 28.
Check out these stocks right now >>
Good Investing,
Kevin Cook
Kevin Cook, Senior Stock Strategist at Zacks, is a leading expert in biotech and medical stocks. He provides commentary and recommendations for Zacks' investment portfolio, Healthcare Innovators.
¹ The results listed above are not (or may not be) representative of the performance of all selections made by Zacks Investment Research's newsletter editors and may represent the partial close of a position.