“This is what one could call pipeline in a pill,” said Bristol’s Chief Medical Officer Samit Hirawat.  

Sotyktu will not carry a black box warning, the US Food and Drug Administration’s strongest communication of potential risks. Analysts were closely watching the safety language in the drug’s label since such warnings have hampered other promising autoimmune drugs. 

The label is “close to the best case scenario,” Citi analyst Andrew Baum wrote in a note to clients. Shares of Ventyx Bioscience, a biotech company pursuing TYK2 drugs, soared as much as 67.14%. 

Bristol will try to unseat Amgen Inc.’s Otezla, a top-selling psoriasis pill that Sotyktu bested in clinical trials. Shares of Amgen fell as much as 4.3%. Convincing health insurers to cover Sotyktu will take time, said Bristol Chief Commercialization Officer Chris Boerner.

Eoin Treacy's view

It has been a busy few days for the biotech sector with drug approvals making headlines for Bristol Myers Squibb, Regeneron and Clovis Oncology. President Biden’s cancer moonshot speech today was an additional catalyst for interest in the biotech sector. Here is a section from article by NBC: 

"Under Dr. Wegrzyn’s leadership, ARPA-H will support programs and projects that undertake challenges ranging from the molecular to the societal, with the potential to transform entire areas of medicine and health in order to prevent, detect, and treat some of the most complex diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cancer, providing benefits for all Americans," the White House said.

The Nasdaq Biotech ETF continues to exhibit inverse head and shoulders chart characteristics consistent with bottoming activity.

The Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy ETF appears to be putting in a higher reaction low as it firms above the 2020 low.