Will the ARK-ification of biotech stock valuations continue in 2021?
The XBI, biotech’s most closely followed stock index, was up an astounding 50% in 2020. More than half of the gains came during the last three months of the year, largely attributed to investors pouring billions of dollars into the high-flying “innovation” and “disruption” funds managed by Cathie Wood, founder of the asset management firm ARK Invest.
Ark’s flagship fund, ARK Innovation ETF, is best known for its huge Tesla ownership, but top holdings also include CRISPR Therapeutics, Invitae, and Editas Medicine. The ARK Genomic Revolution ETF is even more heavily weighted in genome editing and cell therapy stocks like Fate Therapeutics and Iovance Biotherapeutics.
“The next FAANG stocks are in the genomic age,” Wood told Bloomberg recently, using the acronymic shorthand for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. Making good on that prediction in 2021 will require the science and clinical data — rather scant right now — to catch up to multi-billion dollar valuations. If not, the popping of the ARK biotech bubble could get ugly.