According to a freshly-amended 13G filing with the SEC, Baker Bros. Advisors LP, founded by Julian Baker and Felix Baker, revealed it owns 15.1% of DBV Technologies S.A. (NASDAQ:DBVT), now holding 3.60 million ordinary shares of the company. This is up by 2.08 million shares since the fund disclosed its position as of March 31. In the meantime, Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management disclosed a new position in Pacira Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:PCRX) according to a separate 13G filed with the SEC. Visium Asset Management currently owns 1.88 million shares, or 5.1% of the company’s common stock.
We pay attention to hedge funds’ moves because our research has shown that hedge funds are extremely talented at picking stocks on the long side of their portfolios. It is true that hedge fund investors have been underperforming the market in recent years. However, this was mainly because hedge funds’ short stock picks lost a ton of money during the bull market that started in March 2009. Hedge fund investors also paid an arm and a leg for the services that they received. We have been tracking the performance of hedge funds’ 15 most popular stock picks in real time since the end of August 2012. These stocks have returned 123% since then and outperformed the S&P 500 Index by around 66 percentage points (see the details here). That’s why we believe it is important to pay attention to hedge fund sentiment; we also don’t like paying huge fees.
Baker Bros. Advisors LP is a New York-based healthcare and life sciences-focused hedge fund established by Julian Baker and Felix Baker in 2000. The hedge fund has profited greatly from its high exposure to, and expertise in, the healthcare sector, which represents the best performing sector in the S&P 500 Index thus far in 2015. As stated by the fund’s most recent 13F filing, Baker Bros. Advisors manages a public equity portfolio worth $12.02 billion as of March 31. The hedge fund has also recently disclosed an ownership stake of 39.8% in Aquinox Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:AQXP), which quickly turned out to be yet another successful bet for the fund, at least so far.
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DBV Technologies S.A. (NASDAQ:DBVT) is a clinical-stage specialty biopharmaceutical company incorporated in France that is developing an innovative new approach to the treatment of allergies. The shares of DBV have grown by over 49% since the beginning of the current year, thanks to the positive and encouraging clinical and scientific data on its lead candidates, which has been presented over the last few months. To be more detailed, the Pediatric Committee (PDCO) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) adopted a positive stance on the company’s Paediatric Investigation Plan (PIP) for Viaskin Peanut for the treatment of Peanut Allergic Children. This represented a pivotal step towards the commercialization of one of the two lead product candidates of DBV. Thus, following the completion of the Viaskin Peanut Phase III program, the company will unlock a very prosperous revenue stream. Just recently, the company also announced the closing of its underwritten public offering of 4.14 million ordinary shares in the form of 8.28 American Depositary Shares (ADSs) at a price of $34.00 per ADS (each ADS represents one-half of one ordinary share of the company). As a result of this public offering, DBV Technologies generated gross proceeds of $281.5 million, which will surely assist the company in pushing its lead candidates towards commercialization. Interestingly enough, Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management is also listed among the largest shareholders in DBV Technologies S.A. (NASDAQ:DBVT), holding an ownership stake of 464,405 shares on March 31.
Let’s now turn our attention to that other hedge fund discussed in this article, Visium Asset Management. The fund is a long/short equity hedge fund founded by Jacob Gottlieb in 2005. Even though the hedge fund was initially specializing only in healthcare stocks, its holdings are now diversified across other sectors as well. However, the fund’s main focus still remains the healthcare sector, which accounts for 55% of its entire public portfolio. According to its latest 13F filing with the SEC, Visium Asset Management oversees a public equity portfolio with a market value of $6.78 billion as of March 31, 2015.
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Pacira Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:PCRX) is a specialty pharmaceutical company that focuses on the clinical and commercial development of new products that meet the needs of acute care practitioners and their patients. The company’s flagship product, EXPAREL is intended to produce postsurgical analgesia and was commercially launched in the U.S. in 2012. The shares of Pacira have dropped by nearly 27% year-to-date, but the stock has recently leveled off. Just a few days ago, the company provided some updates on its lead product and also posted its financial results for the second quarter of this year. Pacira Pharmaceutical pulled in $57 million in revenue from EXPAREL for the quarter, which marks an increase of 27% year-to-date. While the revenue growth slowed down a bit during the second quarter, some officials at the company believe that the recent challenges facing EXPAREL are transitory. Meanwhile, the company’s non-GAAP net income was $8.4 million or $0.20 per diluted share for the quarter, compared to $1.5 million or $0.04 per diluted share a year ago. From the pool of over 700 hedge funds that we track, Mariko Gordon’s Daruma Asset Management is among the largest shareholders in Pacira Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:PCRX) within our database, owning a stake of 659,998 shares as of March 31.
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