'3 Likely Reasons Why Geron Corporation Vaulted Higher By 18% in March'

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Fishermangents
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'3 Likely Reasons Why Geron Corporation Vaulted Higher By 18% in March'

Post by Fishermangents » Thu Apr 07, 2016 9:56 pm

Motley Fool, 7 April 2016, by Sean Williams

Is Geron's bounce temporary or the start of something much bigger?

Shares of Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of hematology-based cancer therapies, sprung higher by 18% in March based on data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. A confluence of three factors appears to be behind the strong move higher.
First, I don't think we can discount the possibility that the momentum of the market indexes played a role in March. The Nasdaq Composite, which is home to higher growth but riskier investments, surged nearly 7% for the month of March. It's possible that momentum may have pulled the valuations of numerous companies higher, including Geron.
Secondly, we're likely seeing some carryover from Geron's late February earnings release. Geron's collaboration with Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) for lead drug imetelstat landed Geron a $35 million upfront cash payment. This payment was instrumental in allowing it to report net income of $46,000 (or breakeven per share) for the full year. By comparison, it lost $35.7 million in fiscal 2014. Although this represents a one-time payment, Geron ended the year with a healthy cash position of $146.7 million, including short-term investments, and it's snagged a very experienced development partner for imetelstat.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Geron announced mid-month that two non-clinical abstracts containing data on imetelstat were accepted for presentation at the 2016 American Association of Cancer Research, which is to be held later this month. The presentations, which are both expected on April 19th, appear to show that imetelstat is not mediated through toll-like receptors, and that imetelstat may offer growth inhibition benefits with certain types of DNA methyltransferase inhibitors. Drug data is the highly coveted crown jewel of the clinical-stage biotech investor, and investors appear to have run with Geron's abstract release.
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J&J has a pretty good track record of picking out winners to partner with, and if approved imetelstat could have a genuine shot at approaching or eclipsing blockbuster status.

read the whole article here: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... ce=yahoo-2

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