This Fund’s Picks Gained 200% In A Year And Why No One Knows About It

Page 2 of 2

Biogen Inc (NASDAQ:BIIB)

Biogen Inc (NASDAQ:BIIB) is Sarissa Capital’s second-largest position as of March 31, with its 310,000 shares being valued at $84.76 million. This is another stock that Sarissa Capital made no changes to during the previous 1-year period, though the results were less impressive than they were with The Medicines Company, as the holding gained a little over $4 million in value.

Piper Jaffray analyst Joshua Schimmer made an extremely bullish call on Biogen Inc (NASDAQ:BIIB) yesterday, raising his price target to $442 from $332, suggesting greater than 70% upside potential. The call was curious in the sense that it assigned more than $20 billion in value to Biogen while not even being based on any tangible Biogen news (it was actually driven by results from an Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:IONS) study which Schimmer believes showed that Biogen’s own Alzheimer’s treatment aducanunab is likely to be targeting the right pathway).

Follow Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB)

AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV)

Lastly is AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV), in which Sarissa Capital owned just 10,000 shares of on March 31. That’s down from 1.58 million shares a year earlier, when AbbVie was the fund’s top holding. It sold off most of the shares in the second-quarter of last year, capitalizing on a strong run for the stock that saw its gains for the quarter peak at 15% at one point. Shares have posted only modest gains since the end of that quarter.

The big concern with AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) is that it’s heavily reliant on sales of Humira right now, which it lost patent protection for last year and which accounts for over 60% of its revenue. However, those concerns somewhat overlook the fact that it’s used to treat multiple indications, which provides the same level of diversity as if it had a different drug for each indication. Nor does the patent protection loss appear to be having much of an effect, as AbbVie expects Humira to grow even further by 2020 (though at a very modest rate in the single digits). AbbVie also has a robust late-stage pipeline, which includes Imbruvica and Venclexta, each of which is also being targeted at multiple indications.

Follow Innoviva Inc. (NASDAQ:INVA)

Disclosure: None

Page 2 of 2