Celldex Therapeutics Inc (CLDX)

[rayank]

Nice write up on 4/1/17 - https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/01/3-top-stocks-youve-been-overlooking.aspx
A lot for a little
Cory Renauer (Celldex Therapeutics, Inc.): Long-term investors looking for a stock that could more than double over the next couple years might want to revisit or become acquainted with this clinical-stage biotech stock.

Celldex Therapeutics fell out of favor a little over a year ago when its brain cancer candidate, Rintega, performed as expected but technically failed its trial because patients in the standard treatment control group did surprisingly well. Although the company has completely switched gears to focus on new drug candidates entirely unrelated to Rintega, an enterprise value of just $224 million makes this one of the most overlooked stocks in biotech right now.

The company's largest near-term catalyst is a clinical trial with glembatumumab vedotin, or glemba, for the treatment of patients with an extremely difficult to treat form of breast cancer. The patients also have tumors with glemba's target protein on their surface. Once glemba finds its target, it's invited inside the cell where it unleashes a super-lethal dose of chemo.

In a previous study, similar patients survived more than twice as long without signs of disease progression than those receiving standard treatments. An ongoing trial should finish enrolling 300 of these patients in September, and if the results fall in line with previous observations it would probably lead to an eventual approval and a soaring stock price.

While I'd say glemba's potential as a breast cancer treatment alone makes Celldex stock a buy, there's plenty more in the pipeline. Glemba itself is in three other mid-stage clinical trials, one sponsored by the company for skin cancer, plus two investigator-sponsored trials for rare malignancies.

Beyond glemba, immune stimulator varlilumab, is in a combination study with the blockbuster drug Opdivo as a possible combination therapy for treatment of a variety of tumors types. Further down the road, it's has a handful of drugs aimed at various targets in early-stage clinical trials.

The company finished 2016 with $189.8 million in cash and liquid assets after burning through about $128.5 million last year. This should be enough to keep the lights on while waiting for glemba's breast cancer trial results. Add it all up and this is one biotech stock worthy of far more attention than it's been getting lately.

Cory Renauer has no position in any stocks mentioned. Timothy Green owns shares of Best Buy. Tyler Crowe owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon and Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool recommends Celldex Therapeutics and Cintas. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.