Big volume in US today, page-5

Not really sure I believe this analysis from MF. SP almost doubled at one point. It was a slightly delayed reaction as Clearside made their announcement a day or two earlier.

My guess is that if their product is indeed better than Eylea, then someone better do some deals soon to improve their product or they risk losing their gold standard status. An Opthea buyout would be a risk reducing move to protect their annual multibillion revenue, imo. All very speculative, however, but at least it shows we are on the radar of some investors in the US. Maybe time for a roadshow if MB can fit in-between her directorship duties elsewhere.

What happened

Shares of Opthea (NASDAQ:OPT) were skyrocketing 18% as of 3:22 p.m. EDT on Wednesday after jumping as much as 88.7% earlier in the day. The huge gain didn't result from the company's own news. Instead, some investors appear to think that positive safety results from a clinical study announced yesterday by Clearside Biomedical (NASDAQ:CLSD) could bode well for Opthea.

So what

Both Opthea and Clearside Biomedical are developing experimental drugs that target wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Clearside's phase 1/2a safety results reported on Tuesday for CLS-AX indicated that the drug was well tolerated with no drug-related adverse events.

Opthea advanced its wet AMD candidate OPT-302 into late-stage testing earlier this year. The company is conducting two phase 3 clinical studies evaluating OPT-302 in combination with one of two current leading wet AMD drugs -- Lucentis or Eylea.

When one stock moves higher on good news for another similar stock, it's called a sympathy play. Such sympathy plays among biotech stocks aren't unusual. However, just because Clearside's safety results were positive for CLX-AX doesn't mean that Opthea will have similar success with its late-stage studies of OPT-302.

Now what

Investors will have to wait a while before Opthea has final results from its studies of OPT-302. The drugmaker expects to report top-line data in 2023. It hopes to file for regulatory approvals in the U.S. and in Europe after completing the primary efficacy portion of the late-stage studies, which will last for 12 months.