10 Largest Biotech Hedge Funds and Their Top Stock Picks

5. Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:APLS)

Number of Hedge Fund Investors  in Q2 2024: 38

ECOR1 Capital’s Q2 2024 Investment Stake: $445 million

Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:APLS) is a commercial stage biotechnology company that develops treatments for immune system disorders, eye diseases, and other ailments. It is a well diversified firm, with drugs in development and on the market. Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:APLS)’s two primary revenue generating treatments EMPAVELI and SYFOVRE are primarily targeted towards people with eye diseases. The firm is also trying to expand its market for EMPAVELI, by trying to target the drug for people with serious kidney diseases. On this front, Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:APLS) completed a Phase 3 trial of EMPAVELI in August and demonstrated positive results. The firm now plans to submit an FDA application for the drug, which could lead to much needed tailwinds to Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:APLS)’s stock, which is down by 36% year to date.

While EMPAVELI represents Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:APLS)’s future potential, its bread and butter right now is SYFVORE. Here is how management described this drug during the Q1 2024 earnings call:

“SYFOVRE is key to delivering this long-term value and the growth in Q1 underscores the strong demand we continue to see from both physicians and patients. Through March, eye care professionals administers 250,000 SYFOVRE injections and in the first 12 months of launch, SYFOVRE generated over $400 million in sales, substantially exceeding both our and Wall Street’s expectations. This is extraordinary performance for any new product launch. SYFOVRE’s leadership in the market is driven by three important factors. First, treatment with SYFOVRE results in increasing effects over time with up to 42% slowing of GA progression in year three of GALE, building on the meaningful effect demonstrated in DERBY and OAKS. Second, SYFOVRE has a well-documented safety profile based on extensive experience both clinically and in the real world.

And third, SYFOVRE offers flexible dosing as described in our label, which means that patients can benefit from SYFOVRE’s impressive clinical profile in as few as six doses per year. As the market leader, we are only getting started. Our performance to date reaffirms our belief that SYFOVRE has the potential to become a multi-billion dollar product in the U.S. alone. We are also working to bring SYFOVRE to patients worldwide. We recently announced that the European Medicines Agency reset the review of the SYFOVRE application back to day 180 of our initial assessment, which is the last phase of that procedure. This decision follows a judgment made by the Court of Justice in the EU regarding the competing interests of experts. The decision for SYFOVRE is strictly procedural and not related to the SYFOVRE application.”