What longevity / biotech stocks are you holding or looking at investing in right now? What are your investing ideas and strategies?
Myself: I’m still holding Unity Biotechnology (UBX). Looking at Mesoblast (MESO) and AgeX (AGE). Also really interested in Twist Biosciences (TWST) — they do silicon-based synthetic DNA.
Cathie Wood’s ARKG managed Genomics ETF looks like a decent growth biotech fund. It includes some overlap with companies mentioned in Jim Mellon’s book Juvenescence: Investing in the age of longevity. I will probably do a research write up of all the stocks in the ARKG fund and post it to Longevity Marketcap and the newsletter. Stay tuned.
Hey Nathan - my name's Samy Danesh. Work in biotech and recently came across your substack/ website. Loving the content and working back through your writing.
Curious how you approach investing in the space? I'm just starting to get into investing and naturally want to invest in the space, interested in long term investment. How do you approach deciding to invest in a company? Do you emphasize science dd or approach it mostly from market indicators??
Thanks for the kind words. I think investing in longevity biotech is very similar to investing in biotech -- at least for now. The big difference is that longevity therapies have the potential to be massively label expanded. In theory something that can treat aging can be used to treat many different age-related diseases. Returns can be more convex.
4. Do I believe management can execute on the plan?
5. Does the company have enough cash to get to clinical data readouts? (this is most important)
Scientific and IP protection DD are hard to do on your own. I try my best at the former but have no clue on the latter. There are some heuristics that can let you filter out bogus companies though (look at lab lineage, "smart money" invested in the company).
I also like looking at price action (technical analysis) for entries and risk management (taking profits). Certain momentum indicators like weekly RSI and TD sequential actually work well on biotech stocks since most of the time the price moves on zero data or announcements -- it is pure market psychology punctuated by uber-volatile binary readouts. Contrast this to tech where there are streams of ancillary market data that can inform the trajectory of a business.
Another interesting thing to look for is platform technologies. How are lead candidates discovered? Is there a general system that can be built upon iteratively (drug delivery, etc)?
Longevity biotechnology is promising but it is still very early days. There's really not enough public companies to invest in to be properly diversified. Remember the failure rate for clinical drugs is ~90%. So at the moment I only invest in what I expect to lose completely.
Hey Nathan - my name's Samy Danesh. Work in biotech and recently came across your substack/ website. Loving the content and working back through your writing.
Curious how you approach investing in the space? I'm just starting to get into investing and naturally want to invest in the space, interested in long term investment. How do you approach deciding to invest in a company? Do you emphasize science dd or approach it mostly from market indicators??
Hi Samy.
Thanks for the kind words. I think investing in longevity biotech is very similar to investing in biotech -- at least for now. The big difference is that longevity therapies have the potential to be massively label expanded. In theory something that can treat aging can be used to treat many different age-related diseases. Returns can be more convex.
In general, I like using the framework that Greg Bailey, CEO @ Juvenescence, uses (see here: https://longevitymarketcap.substack.com/p/how-to-invest-in-longevity-companies).
It boils down to 5 questions:
1. Does the science make sense?
2. Is there IP protection?
3. Do I agree with the business plan?
4. Do I believe management can execute on the plan?
5. Does the company have enough cash to get to clinical data readouts? (this is most important)
Scientific and IP protection DD are hard to do on your own. I try my best at the former but have no clue on the latter. There are some heuristics that can let you filter out bogus companies though (look at lab lineage, "smart money" invested in the company).
I also like looking at price action (technical analysis) for entries and risk management (taking profits). Certain momentum indicators like weekly RSI and TD sequential actually work well on biotech stocks since most of the time the price moves on zero data or announcements -- it is pure market psychology punctuated by uber-volatile binary readouts. Contrast this to tech where there are streams of ancillary market data that can inform the trajectory of a business.
Another interesting thing to look for is platform technologies. How are lead candidates discovered? Is there a general system that can be built upon iteratively (drug delivery, etc)?
Longevity biotechnology is promising but it is still very early days. There's really not enough public companies to invest in to be properly diversified. Remember the failure rate for clinical drugs is ~90%. So at the moment I only invest in what I expect to lose completely.
Anyway I hope that helps!