Two Buzzing COVID-19 AIM Biotechnology Play: SNG and ETX

Synairgen Plc and E-Therapeutics Plc proving to be the treasure trove

A stock priced below £1 a share is often indicative of companies with not so good fundamentals, or one having a shaky near-term outlook. These price range of scrips tend to be very riskier bets and highly volatile and can bring big swings in an investor’s portfolio (both upside and downside).

Nevertheless, a low-price stock at times can hand over a huge return on investment within a short span of time.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has posed a global crisis, and there is an urgent need to assess new treatments to prevent and effectively treat the severe lower respiratory tract illness that can occur due to this disease. The ageing population and those suffering from chronic diseases such as heart and lung complications, or diabetes are at the greatest risk of developing severe complications or can even prove fatal for them.

Here in this piece of work, we are going to discuss two top-performing low-priced biotechnology stocks now: SNG and ETX.

Synairgen Plc – SNG001 trial in COVID-19 patients, shares zoom ~ 315% on YoY

The respiratory drug discovery and development company on March 31^st, 2020, announced that it has commenced dosing patients in its trial SNG001 in COVID-19 community. This was in line with the update released by the company on March 18^th, 2020. The company then had, updated that Interferon-beta (IFN-beta) has potential applicability to COVID-19 virus. The company mentioned that deficiency in IFN-beta production by the lung could have enhanced susceptibility of patients whose life are at risk because of COVID-19 pandemic.

The company’s SNG001 can play an important role to flatten the curve of the outbreak of the current epidemic, particularly with regards to the population at highest risk of being severely affected by coronavirus pandemic and similar viruses.

Post the outbreak of COVID-19, which started from the mainland of China and till now has gripped almost every country on this planet. The company has been approached by several other medical, scientific, and governmental bodies in the UK, US and other nations. It is presently in discussion with them who are seeking to investigate novel therapeutics in this area.

The company is an Alternative Investment Market-listed a biotechnology company and is engaged in drug discovery and development of therapies for respiratory illness, with an outstanding market capitalisation of £83.7m. The company focuses in the areas including acute asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).

Further, once the announcement was made by the company on March 18^th, 2020 related to trail start of SNG001 in COVID-19 patients, it has sent its shares considerably higher on the LSE. Between March 18th, 2020 to April 28^th, 2020, its shares have surged ~ 259% to end the April 28^ty 2020, session at GBX 56.

The recent rally of ~ 259% has turned stocks of SNG a multibagger on the LSE where its benchmark indices are at multi-year low. On a YoY basis, SNG shares have handed a stupendous return of ~ 315%.

In a year-over period, its shares have registered a 52-week high of GBX 73 on April 14^th, 2020 and a 52-week low of GBX 5.88 on December 23^rd, 2020. However, at the last closing price of GBX 56, its shares have traded ~ 23% off those highs and about 852% above its 52-week low price level.

E-Therapeutics Plc – Anti COVID-19 drug discovery initiatives sent its share gigantically high on LSE, up 303% on YoY

Oxford, UK -based E-therapeutics Plc is a biotechnology company with a unique computer-based approach to drug discovery, founded on the industry-leading expertise in network biology. The company has created two proprietary, unique and productive technologies a) Network-driven Drug Discovery (NDD) and b) Genome Associated Interaction Networks (GAINs). Both NDD and GAINs are a network science, statistics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, which enable more efficient discovery of new and better drugs and analyse human genetic data to provide a deep and valuable understanding of the mechanisms that cause disease. EXT’s shares traded on the AIM platform of the LSE, with an outstanding market capitalisation of £41.51m. Also, the company had tie-ups with Novo Nordisk in Type-2 diabetes and a partnership with five pharmaceutical company based out in the United States in neurodegeneration.

On March 23^rd, 2020, the company announced that they have a technology platform that is proficient enough of being implemented to carry out quick in silico phenotypic testing of COVID-19 virus. Further, the company had effectively used its network science to find active compounds efficient enough of protecting human cells in infection of influenza. These compounds work through their influence on the system of networking proteins which are causing the host cell processes, where the virus is dependent for its ontogeny.

The company believes that the same approaches can be used on influenza, that could be used to discover combinations drugs with valuable activity that were found against Sars-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19. Such arrangements would be crucial part of the effort to assuage the influence of Covid-19. Importantly, these potential combinations of drug formulations would also include the known and currently approved drugs.

Post this announcement its shares have leapt up on LSE and registered a price surge of approximately 79% since March 22nd, 2020, from the closing price of GBX 7.0. Also, on a YoY basis, its shares have delivered a humungous price return of 303% and turned out to be a multibagger stock in a year-over period. Most importantly, the majority of the return its shares accumulated is post the March 23^rd announcement.

In a year-over period, its shares have registered a 52-week high price of GBX 12.88 on April 28^th, 2020 and tested a bottom of GBX 1.5 on June 25^th, 2019. When the broader market is passing through challenging times and hovering near multi-year lows, shares of ETX are edging higher and making new 52-week high amid this sale season.