Check up: Sometimes no news is good news

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Here’s our fortnightly wrap of all the news driving ASX health stocks.

Of the ASX’s 134-odd small cap health stocks and of those which were trading on Wednesday, 71 were in positive territory over the last fortnight, 11 were flat and 52 saw their share prices fall.

A rising tide lifts the strangest of boats and, this week, not the ones with the biggest news.

Cryosite (ASX:CTE), a company that cold-stores biological samples, saw a share price surge over the last two weeks.

On June 28 there was a surge of buying, with over 700,000 shares acquired.

Since September chairman Andrew Kroger has been the only director, and only substantial shareholder trading in the stock. He now has a 40.31 per cent interest, as of the last notice in April.

Aside from that, there’s few other clues as to why this stock rose 118 per cent in the last fortnight.

Of the two most highly anticipated pieces of news, one delivered a disappointment and the other didn’t deliver at all — or at least, not the news investors expected.

The other piece of news was eye biotech Opthea (ASX:OPT), which disappointed investors with clinical trial results labelled by one analyst as “underwhelming”.

Its drug OPT-302 had been studied in a clinical trial as a treatment for diabetic macular edema (DME).

It met primary and secondary endpoints, but the results did not show a significant difference to the standard of care.

The stock, which has risen strongly over the last two weeks in anticipation of a repeat of a spectacular trial last year into wet-age related macular degeneration, dropped by 8 per cent in the hours after the news was announced.

Dimerix (ASX:DXB) shares surged not after it released data from the two clinical trials it’s running, but because its fibrosis drug has been chosen for a global study on COVID-19.

At one point the stock was up over 120 per cent.

Sleep apnoea company Somnomed (ASX:SOM) was having a — very cautious — celebration last week after sales slipped not nearly as badly following the COVID-19 closures.

Sales of its mouthguard, fitted by dentists, that helps combat snoring, tooth grinding, and sleep apnoea, were down 61 per cent.

Somnomed CEO Neil Verdal-Austin said they were “cautiously optimistic” as countries in Europe, North America and Asia re-open.

The timely $15.5m capital raising in March combined with pay cuts across the board and a knife taken to costs means the company is in a hopeful position.

And Neurotech International (ASX:NTI) was called out by the ASX for its rapid price rise.

It’s rare for a company to admit, but it did in fact know something the market didn’t — but clearly some people did, and traded on it.

“The company was aware of information concerning it that had not been announced to the market,” Neurotech revealed.

“The information related to negotiation of a proposed heads of agreement for a strategic collaboration in respect of rights under a distribution agreement to market and sell TGA approved IgM, IgG Antibody COVID-19 testing kits in Australia, New Zealand (exclusive) and all other countries (non-exclusive) other than China.”

Two months ago that would have sent the stock stratospheric. Today? A mere 33 per cent. And that was from a starting point of 0.8c when a couple of grand can move the market.

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