Missed the 310% Rise of Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals? Keep an Eye On This Competitor
Hepatitis B virus is responsible for nearly 900,000 deaths each year -- nearly twice as many as malaria -- and is the primary cause of liver cancer, which is the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. That helps explain why investors have been so excited about the latest update from Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ARWR) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) on their collaborative effort to develop a functional cure for chronic hepatitis B (CHB).
The results from an early-stage clinical trial with 11 patients suggested that a new triple-combination therapy could be the industry's best effort yet to develop a functional cure, but it will take much larger studies with many more individuals to definitively make that claim. Despite that, shares of Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals soared to all-time highs on the news and are now up 310% since the beginning of 2019.
That may have many investors doubting the value of jumping into a position at the current price level. It's a good question to ask, but rather than answer it directly, investors may sidestep the question altogether by focusing instead on a smaller competitor with striking parallels: Dicerna Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: DRNA).
Source Fool.com
