Biotech Lotto Ticket Update
Follow-Up On Our Biotech Lotto Ticket
In my post here on Thursday ("The Case For Trusting Trump On Iran"), I mentioned we had a biotech lotto ticket trade teed up for Friday:
Before we get to it, a brief programming note. We've got a biotech lottery ticket trade teed up for Friday--this one may have a catalyst hitting over the weekend (it's not the diabetes one--that one has a potential catalyst hitting next week).
If you'd like a heads up when we place it, feel free to subscribe to our trading Substack/occasional email list below.
And if you want to add downside protection in the event the war in the Mideast escalates, our website and iPhone app are there for you--even on "Juneteenth".
Our Biotech Lotto Ticket Is Now Set To Cash
Kudos to those of you who bought the ticket on Friday.
Our biotech lotto ticket was buying the $1 strike July calls on Lineage Cell Therapeutics (LCTX 0.00%↑) ahead of its 36-month data release for OpRegen®, an embryonic-stem-cell therapy for geographic atrophy (GA) (LTCX closed at $0.95 on Friday).
Late Saturday night, Lineage quietly uploaded the slide deck from Dr. Christopher Riemann’s podium talk at Clinical Trials at the Summit in Las Vegas earlier in the day. This was the first public look at the 36-month data from the Phase 1/2a trial of its retinal-pigment-epithelium (RPE) cell therapy for geographic atrophy (GA—a late, “dry” form of age-related macular degeneration).
The numbers are excellent.
What the data showed
Durable vision benefit – Treated eyes gained +2 letters on average, while their untreated fellow eyes lost –14.5 letters over the same 36-month span.
Lesion-growth slowdown – Mean GA expansion fell by ≈ 65 % in treated eyes (0.79 mm²/yr vs 2.27 mm²/yr in controls).
Clean safety – No late graft rejection; only one mild inflammatory event (Grade 1) reported after Year 1.
Structural proof – OCT (Optical-coherence-tomography) imaging still shows a healthy RPE-like layer where the graft was placed, with photoreceptors intact above it.
Put simply, a one-time cell transplant preserved sight and slowed disease better than any approved GA drug—without the injection burden.
What to Expect When the Market Opens
We obviously don’t have Monday pre-market prints yet, but catalysts of this quality on micro-cap floats (<$200 M) can gap up 50%–100% at the open. If that happens:
The July $1 calls we bought for about $0.20 should open at several-times that price—most of their value will be intrinsic once the stock is solidly above $1.
Implied volatility (IV) will jump at first, then likely fade as traders lock profits. The first hour is usually the sweet spot to sell a tranche.
Macro disclaimer: One wild card is the Mideast conflict, in the wake of the U.S. strikes on Iran on Saturday: should headlines turn sharply negative overnight (e.g., significant Iranian retaliations), broad risk-off flows could trim the opening gap up or accelerate profit-taking.
My Plan
Sell half of the position into any opening spike on Monday to lock in profits.
Hold the balance to see if we get a follow through higher (on raised analyst price targets, etc.).
If You Missed Friday’s Entry
Upside: a clean tape could still march to $2–$2.50 this week on analyst chatter or a Genentech milestone PR.
Downside: profit-taking and IV crush can lop off a third of the pop quickly.
Consider waiting for the first hour’s range to form; nibble commons or cheap July $1.50 calls only if price holds above ~$1.60 on solid volume.
Takeaways
The catalyst hit: durable vision benefit, slowed GA progression, and a benign safety curve.
The move isn’t priced in yet; first reaction comes Monday.
Trade the surge, but respect how fast biotech gains can retrace.
Want a heads up when we place our next trade? Scroll up and click on that Portfolio Armor Substack widget above.
Full deck (11 pages) is here if you’d like to review before the bell.
See you Monday morning.