Investor Joseph Edelman leads Perceptive Advisors and since 1999 the fund has returned an annualized 30.2%. Last year, the fund returned about 48%. Edelman works with six biotech analysts to find companies with potential large gains ahead.
Perceptive has been actively buying Amicus Therapeutics (NASDAQ:FOLD) over the past few months. The fund bought 8,339,444 shares on May 29 of this year, and added another 4,000,000 shares on June 30. The 4,000,000 additional shares were added on the day that Amicus announced trial updates and an analysis plan for its Phase III Fabry Monotherapy Study 012.
Additionally, Perceptive bought 2.1M shares of the company during its offering last month, bringing the firms total share count to a little over 14.4M.
Amicus is a biotechnology company focused on developing therapies for rare and orphan diseases, specifically Lysosomal Storage Disorders. The company's drug furthest along in development is Migalastat for Fabry's disease.
Fabre's disease is a deficiency of the enzyme alpha galactosidase-A due to mutation. It causes a glycolipid to accumulate within the blood vessels, other tissues, and organs. This accumulation leads to an impairment of their proper functions. Patients typically suffer from full body or localized pain to the extremities, believed to be related to the damage of peripheral nerve fibers that transmit pain. Kidney and cardiac complications are also common, along with dermatological manifestations and clouding of the corneas. The leading causes of death for the disease are renal failure, cardiac failure, and stroke.
On April 29, 2014, the company announced positive twelve and 24-month data from the Phase III 011 study of migalastat HCl, which is designed to treat Fabry patients with amenable mutations. Migalastat HCl is a chaperone for the treatment of Fabry disease.
Afterwards, in August of 2014, the company announced positive data from its second phase III study (Study 012). On November 17th, the company announced additional positive data concerning secondary endpoints from the same Study 012.
