Ebola outbreak: Cashing in on a cure

Jeff Macke

Since Ebola emerged as a threat late last Spring it’s been great catalyst for story stocks. Ebola kills at a 70% rate! It was a global threat of large but unknowable size. A stock promoter’s dream.

NewLink Genetics, Tekmira and others are trying to come up with more effective Ebola cures
NewLink Genetics, Tekmira and others are trying to come up with more effective Ebola cures

Fortunes have been made already in biotech companies rumored to be working on cures for Ebola over the last six months. In the attached clip OptionMonster.com’s Jon Najarian says the easy money has been made but there are still some potential opportunities in company’s that, for want of a better way to put it, profit from Ebola.

NewLink Genetics (NLNK) was up 50% last week despite a large drop on Friday afternoon. It's up more than 15% today alone. It brought to mind huge pops and plunges from past epidemics and health scares. In all but a very few of those cases the companies that were supposed to be the next big thing in defense against, say, Bird Flu or SARs turned out to be duds.

“July 26th is when we flew those two patients back here,” Najarian says. That’s when those stocks were cheap. They are no longer cheap.”

Najarian claims more people died getting kicked in the head by camels than from Ebola last year. Maybe, but there’s still a lot of year left and Ebola is catching up fast.

Clip the link to get Najarian’s take on NewLink Genetics, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX) Tekmira Pharmaceuticals (TKMR) and more.

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