Here's Why Prothena (PRTA) Stock Is Up So Far This Month

Most of the upside came after the FDA approval of Biogen’s BIIB Alzheimer's disease (AD) drug, Aduhelm. On Jun 7, 2021, Biogen and partner Eisai won the FDA approval for Aduhelm (aducanumab-avwa) as the first and only AD treatment, after a few setbacks.

The approval has brought the spotlight on other companies as well who are developing drugs for AD and investors are optimistic about the prospects of these pipeline candidates.

Prothena’s PRX005 is being evaluated for the treatment of AD. The candidate is an investigational antibody that targets tau, a protein implicated in diseases including AD, frontotemporal dementia (FTD), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and other tauopathies.

Preclinical data showed that targeting an epitope within the microtubule binding region (MTBR) of tau with PRX005 resulted in superior attributes for the potential treatment of AD. PRX005 demonstrated significant inhibition of cell-to-cell transmission and neuronal internalization in vitro and in vivo, and slowed pathological progression in a tau transgenic mouse model. An Investigational New Drug (IND) application for the same is expected by the third quarter. PRX005 is being developed as part of the company’s global neuroscience collaboration with Bristol Myers (NYSE:BMY) BMY .

The company has another candidate, PRX012, which is a potential treatment for AD. The candidate is a high-affinity monoclonal antibody targeting a key epitope within the N-terminus of Aβ. An IND for the same is expected by the first quarter of 2022.

The approval of Biogen’s AD drug has raised hopes for these candidates as well.

While the candidates hold promise, given their superior mechanism of action, they still have a long way to go and are a few years away from approval. We note that Prothena had earlier discontinued the development of NEOD001, an investigational antibody that was being evaluated for the treatment of AL amyloidosis. Hence, any pipeline setback will adversely impact the prospects.

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Meanwhile, another company, Eli Lilly LLY , too saw an increase in its share price lately on the prospects of its AD candidate, donanemab.

Prothena currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here .

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You know this company from its past glory days, but few would expect that it’s poised for a monster turnaround. Fresh from a successful repositioning and flush with A-list celeb endorsements, it could rival or surpass other recent Zacks’ Stocks Set to Double like Boston Beer (NYSE:SAM) Company which shot up +143.0% in a little more than 9 months and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) which boomed +175.9% in one year.

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