Cassava Sciences (SAVA) is a high risk, high reward clinical biotech company; its flagship drug candidate is Simufilam — an Alzheimer’s drug — currently in Phase 3 trials, explains Joe Cotton, editor of Cotton’s Technically Speaking.
What makes this stock so interesting is that Simufilam appears to improve cognition in Alzheimer’s patients, not just slow the progression of the disease. That’s a really big deal. If it gets approved, it could easily become a multi-billion dollar drug.
We have been following the stock for some time and on October 6, 2020 we gave it a Buy Rating at $9.32. Within 10 months it reached $140 intraday, a gain of 1400%. If Simufilam gets approved, the stock could go a lot higher. But keep in mind that this is a one-drug company, and the stock could go down to $1.00 if it fails to get the drug approved.
In August of 2021, a law firm representing admitted short sellers submitted a Citizen Petition to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requesting that Cassava’s clinical trials of Simufilam be stopped, alleging, among other things, data manipulation in scientific articles authored by Cassava scientists, including a 2005 Neuroscience article.
As a result, the stock plummeted from $120 to $40. Neuroscience re-examined the original data for the article and in December of 2021 stated that they found no evidence to support claims of data manipulation.
The claims, although apparently false, have cast a shadow over the stock for some time. But now, the stock is acting well and we expect it to continue strongly on an upward path. Here are catalysts for a continued upmove:
1) The company has a relatively small amount of shares outstanding — only 41.74 million shares, and a Float of only 37.69 million shares. The stock moved up $1.58 on volume of only 1.8 million shares on 12/8/22.
2) Furthermore there are 9.33 million shares short, equal to 24.66% of the Float, as of November 15, 2022 per Yahoo! Finance. That is a very large figure, making the stock a prime candidate for a short squeeze, which we believe has just begun.
3) The company has enrolled approximately 650 patients in two Phase 3 studies and plans to enroll a total of 1,750 patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease in the 2 studies of Simufilam. The results of its ongoing Phase 3 clinical program are expected to come out in mid-2024.
4) The company announced completion of drug administration in an open-label study of Simufilam for approximately 200 patients designed to evaluate long-term drug safely and to measure cognitive changes over 12 months. The results may be announced approximately year end 2022.
5) Insiders apparently think Simufilam works, because two Directors spent their hard earned cash buying the stock in August of 2022. Director Richard Barry bought 36,159 shares @ $23.79 for a cost of $860,223. And Director Sanford Robinson bought 100,000 shares @ $20.69 for a total of $2,069,000. When the directors of a company are buying their company’s stock it’s a big plus that inspires confidence. We like the stock.
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