Dylan Jovine's SECRET for Biotech Investing

An Outsider From the Start

My name is Dylan Jovine.

I started my career on Wall Street in 1991.

But I didn’t start at an “establishment” firm like Goldman Sachs or J.P. Morgan.

I grew up poor and went to city college.

No big Wall Street firm would hire me.

I was too much of an outsider.

Thankfully, I got my big break from another Wall Street “outsider” – Peter Jacquith.

He’s one of the bankers who became famous for saving New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970’s.

He started a boutique firm after leaving Lazard Freres’ & Company.

It was an opportunity I would not take for granted.

I may not have had the connections other people had.

But nobody was going to work harder than I did.

I managed accounts. But I fell in love with researching stocks.

Studying a stock was like reading a short history book about the town the company was in, the people that worked there and the products they made.

I loved it.

I couldn’t believe people got paid to do this.

Within three years, I earned a reputation for picking stocks right before they were taken over.

My Love of Biotech is Personal

So how does a guy who built his reputation on takeover targets get involved in biotechs?

Right around the time I turned 40, I was diagnosed with metabolic syndrome.

At first, I was shocked.

But then I looked in the mirror and I didn’t recognize the face that looked back at me.

Gone was the young man beaming with energy.

In his place stood a man pushing 300 lbs with bags under his eyes who had not had a good night's sleep in five years.

My wife had just given birth to my first-born daughter Lila and a second one was on the way.

Close to thirty years of working 12-hour days, 7 days a week had taken their toll.

On one hand, I had started, built, and sold two separate investment-related companies before I turned 40: the brokerage firm, which I had sold in 2000, and Tycoon Research.

On the other hand, I was slowly killing myself.

I think we all get to an age when we learn we’re not playing with house money.

Well, that’s the day I learned I wasn’t.

So in 2013, I sold my last business and decided to take some time off to get healthy again.

Two years and many doctors later, I found one who helped.

He asked if I’d be interested in enrolling in an experimental gene therapy program that custom-tailors treatments based on my genetic profile.

Instead of chemical medicines, he would recommend customized treatments based on my personal test results.

I was so desperate I agreed.

We’ve made a dozen or so adjustments like that based on my genetic profile and I slowly started to get well.

A year or so later I started to feel like my old self again.

And then the investor in me took over. I started asking questions.

What company was behind these genetic tests?

Is the company publicly traded?

What other companies do this?

What else do they treat?

Are they publicly traded?

And who else knows about this?

Nobody did.

It was like a secret bull market happening in our bathrooms.

It was staring me in the face when I brushed my teeth in the morning.

But it seemed nobody was talking about it, outside of a small group of scientists and investors.

Nobody.

So, I’ve spent the past decade studying the biggest breakthroughs in medicine.

My Secret to Biotech Investing

You see, the biggest mistake investors make when picking biotech stocks is not picking them at the right time in their clinical trial cycle.

Take a look for yourself.

A typical FDA clinical trial has 3 Phases.

PHASE 1

Phase 1 is a test for safety and dosing.

In this phase, scientists aren’t really testing to see if the drug works.

They’re testing to see if there are any adverse side effects.

They do this by using a small group of between 20 and 80 people.

The good news is that roughly 63.2% of all drugs make it out of Phase 1.

The bad news is that I call this the “stock promoter phase”…

That’s because the small biotechs that tend to run up in Phase 1 often do so because of good public relations as much as anything.

PHASE 2

Phase 2 expands the test and can include hundreds of people.

While safety and dosing are being evaluated, it’s really the first time that scientists are looking to see if the drug actually works.

And that’s what makes Phase 2 very risky: only 30% of drugs make it out of Phase 2 and onto Phase 3.

PHASE 3

The final phase Phase 3 which can include thousands of people.

In addition to side effects, the big focus of Phase 3 is to see how well the drug works at different dosing regimens.

Find a company with a safe drug that can impact a massive market that’s in Phase 3 trials – and generational wealth can be made.

That’s where we’ve had most of our success.

Biotech Winners

Chemocentryx

Understanding this very simple diagram is what has allowed me to spot ChemoCentryx as it was moving from Phase 2 to Phase 3…delivering gains of 435%

KRYSTAL BIOTECH

The same thing happened with Krystal Biotech. A lot of folks got in too early and rode the ups and downs for years. But we recommended it when it crossed from Phase 2 to Phase 3, delivering gains of 275%

KURA ONCOLOGY

Same for Kura Oncology. When that stock entered Phase 3 trials, I recommended shares which delivered gains of 124%.