Eagle Pharmaceuticals is a specialty pharmaceutical company based in New Jersey that develops injectable products that improve the performance of other drugs and make them easier to administer. This year Eagle Pharmaceuticals inked an important licensing deal with big Teva Pharmaceuticals on a treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia that just got approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
In 2015, the stock of Eagle Pharmaceuticals soared higher than any other big stock in America. Shares of Eagle Pharmaceuticals rose by 489% this year. Scott Tarriff, Eagle Pharmaceuticals’ CEO and founder, now owns stock in the company valued at more than $130 million. The other big winner of this year’s Eagle Pharmaceuticals story is Jay Moorin and his ProQuest Investments venture capital firm, the biggest shareholder of the company with a 30% stake.
The U.S. stock market is down for the year, but some stocks have still managed to sizzle for their investors, particularly in the biotechnology sector. In fact, the top big stocks in America this year come down to biotech companies and Netflix. Nine of the nation’s top 10 stocks in 2015 came from the biotech sector, according to FactSet Research Systems data showing the performance of U.S. stocks with market capitalizations greater than $1 billion. Netflix has been the only non-biotech company to crack the top 10, highlighting the remarkable run the stock of the video-streaming service had in 2015. The biotech boom that has swept the stock market in recent years certainly slowed down and became much more choppy in 2015 with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF only returning 6% this year and some biotech names facing investor pressure. Nevertheless, there is still excitement and a healthy appetite for risk in the stock market for various emerging medical treatments.
Anacor Pharmaceuticals, a California-based biotech, is the second best performing stock in the nation in 2015. This year Anacor has reported some positive trial results for its topical anti-inflammatory ointment for patients suffering from moderate atopic dermatitis, a skin condition that causes itchiness and extreme dryness. Shares of Anacor, which have been popular with hedge funds like Baker Brothers and Millennium Management, are up 266% this year.
Another California company, Exelixis, a biotech based in San Francisco, is working to get a thyroid cancer drug approved for the treatment of kidney cancer. Shares of Exelixis surged this summer after the company reported some good-looking trial results. The stock is up 233% in 2015, making Exelixis the third best performing stock in America this year.
Shares of Prothena surged by 226% in 2015. The early-stage biotech arm of Elan in South San Francisco that was spun off a few years ago has been reporting good trial results for a Parkinson’s disease drug and is also developing a drug that can treat a rare disease called amyloidosis.
Intra-Cellular Therapies is a New York-based biotech that saw its stock rise this year by 211% as it reported promising results for its drug to treat schizophrenia. That makes it one of five biotech stocks in America that produced a gain of more than 200% this year. Shares of Dyax, a Massachusetts-based biotech focused on rare diseases, increased by 166% this year thanks to the deal it struck to be bought by Shire for $5.9 billion.
Netflix, the video streaming service, has been the top-performing non-biotech stock in America this year. Its stock has returned 147% in 2015, an amazing performance given its $50 billion market capitalization. Netflix’s CEO and billionaire founder Reed Hastings keeps adding more subscribers both in the U.S. and internationally while posting strong earnings.
Click here to see the stock charts of all of the top 10 stocks in America this year.
