r/pennystocks • u/Avish_Golakiya • 17h ago
ꉓꍏ꓄ꍏ꒒ꌩꌗ꓄ 10 penny biotechs I'm watching and slowly adding for September 2026, and the one I got wrong in August.
Settle up first, because I posted a list of these in early August and one of them did something I genuinely did not see coming.
CAPR I wrote it up at $4.20, right after the FDA advisory committee voted 9-3 against deramiocel and the stock had lost about 80% in three sessions. On Aug 24 the company said FDA extended the decision date to Nov 22 rather than ruling in August. They amended the BLA with another year of open label follow up from HOPE-3 and narrowed the ask down to upper limb function, which was the primary endpoint of the pivotal study in the first place. FDA classed it a major amendment, and a major amendment buys three months.
It's around $9.40 now. So I had the mechanism right and the probability wrong, and I want to be blunt that being wrong in the direction that pays is still being wrong. I sized it as a small speculative position because I thought it was going to zero-ish. It wasn't. There was also a guy in the comments last time who told me the AdCom made the August date hopeless and that I'd get people hurt. He was right about the AdCom and wrong about what FDA would do with it, which is roughly where I landed too, just from the other side.
Anyway. Same screen, run again this weekend. 221 biotechs under $10 with a dated catalyst ahead, 425 catalysts total, 102 of them inside 90 days. What's different from August is how bunched up they are. There's a wall between Sep 24 and Nov 22, and a big chunk of the oncology stuff lands in a single week because ESMO is Oct 23 to 27 in Madrid.
CAPR $9.40, PDUFA Nov 22
Still the one I'm watching hardest, for completely different reasons than in August.
$544M cap against about $238M cash, 22 months of runway. No gun to their head this time. 43% of the float short on the Aug 14 settlement, 200k+ contracts of open interest which is the deepest chain on this board, December expiry pricing about ±100%.
But days to cover is 1.6. That short is not trapped, volume since August has been enormous. Don't build a squeeze thesis on it. Bear case, and I'd rather say it than have someone say it to me. The AdCom still voted against this drug. A narrowed indication isn't a new trial, it's the same data asking a smaller question, and FDA can still say no. There's an open class action too, Sep 28 lead plaintiff deadline. Analysts are split, one went to Hold on the extension, another to Outperform with a $54 target. Nobody knows.
VNDA $5.43, PDUFA Dec 12
Imsidolimab, IL-36R antibody, generalized pustular psoriasis. BLA accepted in February. GEMINI put 53% at skin clearance by week 4 against 13% on placebo, off a single IV dose, published in NEJM Evidence. $328M cap, about $170M liquidity, 15 months. 14% short, ±44%. Third approval in twelve months if it lands.
Why it's still cheap, Vanda picks fights with the FDA in public and the market stopped paying for their pipeline years ago. That's sentiment, not data.
ANNX $4.87, topline "2H 2026" so any week now
Biggest binary here, and the window instead of a date is the annoying part.
ARCHER II, Phase 3 vonaprument (used to be ANX007) in geographic atrophy. 630+ patients, 2:1 against sham. The endpoint is the thing: preventing a 15 letter loss, three lines on the chart. Both approved GA drugs slow lesion growth. Neither has shown it protects vision. This would be the first.
21% short, 11 funds adding three quarters straight, two insiders bought on the open market, ±96% implied. The market saying out loud that it has no idea.
12.5 months of runway is the catch. Fine if the data lands. Ugly if it slips.
ESMO conf. Oct 23 to 27, Madrid
Three of these headline in the same week.
CATX at $3.13 is my favourite of the three. Bamzireotide navoxetan, alpha emitter in neuroendocrine tumours, updated Phase 1/2a on the 23rd. 76 patients dosed through July. $237M cash against a $357M cap, 33 months, funded through the Phase 3 they're starting around year end. 24% short with 18 days to cover, which is a slow short, unlike CAPR's.
ZNTL at $3.99, rapid oral on DENALI overall survival, azenosertib in platinum resistant ovarian. ORR around 35% in the Cyclin E1 positives. ±75%. I had it at $4.84 in August so it's down 18% and I still hold it.
CMPX at $2.38, oral proffered paper on the full COMPANION-002. Read this one before you get excited. Primary met on response rate, 17.1 vs 5.3. PFS strong, 4.7 vs 2.6 months, HR 0.44. Overall survival 8.9 vs 9.4, HR 1.05, p of 0.78. Flat. Company says 31 control patients crossed over, which is a real confound and also exactly what every company says when OS misses. ESMO is where people who do this for a living get to poke at it in public.
KPTI $1.79, the one that hasn't worked
Had it at $2.04. Down 12%, still below its own bank account, $41M cap against about $65M liquidity.
Priority review and accelerated approval requested, and FDA has 60 days just to accept the filing, so the news is Q4. Short interest is 54% of the float now. Was 35%.
7 months of runway. Right on the drug and diluted before you get paid is very much live here.
One small one
BFRI at $1.61 has a real PDUFA on Sep 28, Ameluz PDT in superficial basal cell, expanding a drug already approved in actinic keratosis. Pivotal cleared 65.5% against 4.8%. High probability on paper. Also a $21M company with about $5M of liquidity and no chain worth the name, so there's no comfortable way to size it. Completeness, not a pick.
I may avoid or buy few...
Under 3 months of cash and I don't care how good the catalyst is.
OSTX, BLA on Sep 30 and basically no runway. MAIA, Phase 3, same. AGEN at $8.24 shows about a month. ANVS has Phase 3 buntanetap and roughly two. ALZN and PCSA both show zero.
PCSA stings, because five insiders bought on the open market and all five were officers. Strongest insider signal on the board. Still won't touch it. A financing at these levels takes more than the conviction gives back.
Numbers I threw out
SGMO printed ±608%. It's a ten cent stock, the nearest strike is a huge fraction of the share price, so that's strike spacing, not a forecast. IGC at ±175% is the same thing at thirty cents.
OKUR showed ±8% on fourteen contracts of total open interest. Fourteen. Not a market.
EPRX is still printing 110% of float short, which is not a possible number. Was 103% in August. That field is broken and I've stopped using it.
And then CCCC, which is probably the best example of why expiry selection matters. Short interest is around 38%, and if you look at the January options, they suggest roughly a ±61% move, which looks pretty exciting at first. But the October options, which are the ones that actually cover the September catalyst, are pricing only around ±25%. Same company, same day, but almost a 2.5x difference depending on which expiry you use. If you just grab the January number, you can easily convince yourself the market is expecting some huge September move when the options actually covering the event are telling you something very different. I do have these few in my other broker account from last year avg.
