This little-known biotech stock has ‘blockbuster potential,’ says Citi

Autoimmune disease drugmaker Cabaletta Bio could soon have a multi-billion-dollar product on its hands, according to Citi. Analyst Samantha Semenkow initiated research coverage with a buy rating on Cabaletta shares. Her price target of $22 implies shares could rally more than 65% compared to Friday’s close. Last October, the biotech firm obtained an exclusive, worldwide license for its autoimmune disease therapy CABA-201. The treatment is a CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor modified T-cell therapy (CART), a treatment for patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-hodgkin lymphoma. Semenkow noted the CART treatment landscape has become increasingly crowded and competitive. However, she says Cabaletta stands out among its peers for its de-risked development strategy. The treatment’s fully-human CD19 binder has a similar potency to those CD19 derived from rodents used in academic studies, while offering a better potential safety profile. “If successful in the clinic, we see CABA-201 as a potential multi-billion-dollar product across lead indications [systemic lupus erythematosus] and myositis, with the opportunity to expand to other B-cell driven autoimmune indications,” Semenkov said in a Tuesday note. “In our view, the risk/reward is favorable into initial CABA-201 clinical data in 1H24.” The company has already established relationships with several studies from its ongoing trials, and could see rapid enrollment times for its phase 1 and 2 trials of CABA-201 as a result, she added. To be sure, the analyst noted that clinical risk for the treatment is still high, given that it is still in the early stage of clinical development. Nonetheless, she said preexisting work into the drug offers “very good” clinical proof-of-concept, and initial safety data is positive. Shares surged as much as 19.3% early Tuesday, reaching a new 52-week high. Cabaletta has jumped more than 69% year to date. Cabaletta came public in late 2019 at $11 per share in an IPO led by Morgan Stanley, Cowen and Evercore ISI. —CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.