Jeremy Zhou manages Covestor’s Biotech and Medtech portfolio, which launched just recently. He brings to his investing a strong background in nutrition, toxicology and finance: his academic background includes a B.S. degree in Nutrition & Toxicology and a Masters of Public Health (MPH) with an emphasis on Epidemiology from UC Berkeley. Jeremy is also a Registered Dietitian (RD) and a CFA Charterholder.
Jeremy is now the Director of Healthcare Research at a financial data and analytics company that primarily serves buy-side managers.
For the Biotech and Medtech portfolio, Jeremy’s investment universe includes “the U.S. healthcare industry, particularly Biotech and MedTech.” Here’s his method:
I use a combination of top-down and bottom-up fundamental analysis to evaluate potential opportunities and risks, with macro-factors primarily employed for sector allocation and rotation, and company-specific factors used for individual stock selection and weighting.
Current top holdings include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (Nasdaq: TEVA), Transcept Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: TSPT) and Biodel (Nasdaq: BIOD).
On 3/25, Zhou added Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) to the portfolio. According to Smith on Stocks, at Seeking Alpha,
The FDA approval of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s new oncology drug Yervoy (ipilimumab) on Friday, March 25, 2011, produced a number of positive surprises. Highlights of the approval were as follows:
- First of all, an outright approval for a drug on its PDUFA date as opposed to a Complete Response Letter is a rare and surprising event given the current modus operandi of the FDA.
- Secondly, ipilimumab was approved for all patients suffering from metastatic cancer, both those who are treatment naïve and those who had failed previous therapy. It was our expectation that it would only be approved for patients who had failed prior therapy. However, the labeling instructions are consistent with the 020 trial as it pertains to dosing.
- And finally, BMY priced the drug at $120,000 for a course of therapy versus our expectation of $50,000 to $60,000.
- There is a black box warning on side effects and a REMS program.
BMY closed down 0.52% on 3/29.
Sources:
“Bristol-Myers Squibb: Ipilimumab Approval Brings Positive Surprises” Smith on Stocks. Seeking Alpha, 3/28. https://seekingalpha.com/article/260508-bristol-myers-squibb-ipilimumab-approval-brings-positive-surprises
