Dice Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DICE) stock went public in September 2021 at around $37. The DICE share price has since fallen but has rebounded today and is up over 82% in pre-market trading.
DICE stock is rising after announcing DC-806, its potential oral therapy for psoriasis, showed a mean reduction in psoriasis area and severity index from baseline 43.7%, compared with 13.3% in placebo. These results come after four weeks of treatment in a portion of a phase 1 trial in patients with the disease.
What Does Dice Therapeutics Do?
DICE Therapeutics, Inc. is a biopharma stock leveraging its proprietary technology platform to build a pipeline of novel oral therapeutic candidates to treat chronic diseases in immunology and other therapeutic areas.
DICE initially focuses on developing oral therapeutics against well-validated targets in immunology to achieve comparable potency to their systemic biologic counterparts, demonstrating the greatest therapeutic benefit to date in these disease areas.
The company's DELSCAPE platform is designed to discover selective oral small molecules with the potential to modulate protein-protein interactions (PPIs) as effectively as systemic biologics.
DICE's lead therapeutic candidates are oral antagonists of the pro-inflammatory signaling molecule IL-17, a validated drug target implicated in various immunology indications.
The company is also developing oral therapeutic candidates targeting α4ß7 integrin and αVß1/αVß6 integrin for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, respectively.
According to Bloomberg, DICE Therapeutics, Inc. operates as a biopharmaceutical company. The company designs and develops innovative therapies in immunology for patients with chronic diseases. DICE Therapeutics serves customers worldwide.
Phase 1 Trial Update
Positive Topline Data from Phase 1 Clinical Trial of Lead Oral IL-17 Antagonist, DC-806, for Psoriasis:
Clinical proof-of-concept in psoriasis patients achieved a mean percentage reduction in PASI from baseline at four weeks of 43.7% in the high-dose group compared to 13.3% in the placebo group, with an exploratory p-value of 0.0008.
DC-806 was well tolerated with an excellent safety profile across all dose groups in healthy volunteers and psoriasis patients, with a robust PK profile and clear pharmacodynamic effects on two distinct biomarkers at both high and low doses of DC-806.
Data supports further development of DC-806 as a potential best-in-class oral agent for psoriasis; DC-806 is expected to advance into a Phase 2b clinical trial in the first half of 2023.
How Does Dice Therapeutics Make Money?
Dice Therapeutics does not currently make money. It did bring in collaborative revenue of $1.1m in 2021.
The company has incurred significant operating losses since its inception and has relied primarily on public and private equity to fund its operations. As of June 30, 2022, DICE had an accumulated deficit of $143.8m.
As Dice Therapeutics is involved in R&D, these losses are expected to continue until such time if it can successfully develop and commercialize its product candidates.
As of June 30, 2022, Dice had cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities of $282.2m. This should provide sufficient capital resources to continue its operations for at least twelve months from August 2022.
DICE Stock Financials
Dice Therapeutics' market cap is $916.49m, and its latest quarterly EPS fell -35.80% Y/Y.
Dice Therapeutics (DICE) reported its latest quarterly earnings on August 11 after the market close.
The company is due to report its next earnings update on November 11. FactSet analyst estimates project an EPS consensus of $-0.59.
Over the past year, DICE stock has traded between $12.64 and $38.18. Today it trades at around $24.65. Year-to-date, the Dice Therapeutics stock price is down -1.5%, while the S&P 500 is down -24.69% over the same period.
FactSet analysts have a consensus Buy rating on DICE stock with a target share price of $39.66.
DICE stock has a price-to-book-value (P/BV) of 3.31. DICE stock does not come with a dividend yield.
The short-interest ratio gives an investor an idea of how heavily a stock is being shorted. DICE stock has a short ratio of 11.66 (also known as days to cover). A short ratio of more than 8 to 10 days to cover means the short seller will find it more difficult to cover and close their positions.
Dice Therapeutics Growth Potential and Risks
A part of Dice Therapeutics' future growth depends on its ability to develop and commercialize its therapeutic candidates in foreign markets for which it may rely on collaboration with third parties.
The company's DELSCAPE technology platform aims to create new therapies against "difficult to target protein-protein interactions (PPIs), using small, targeted DNA-enabling libraries (DELs)." This gives the potential for further breakthroughs in developing therapies for problematic conditions.
The psoriasis market is large, but it's also highly competitive. Big players such as Novartis (NYSE: NVS) and AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) sell popular psoriasis treatments.
According to Fortune Business Insights, the global psoriasis treatment market is projected to grow from $26.37bn in 2022 to $47.24bn by 2029, exhibiting a CAGR of 8.7% in the forecast period.
Is DICE Stock a Good Investment?
DICE is an emerging growth stock prone to volatility. The share price is likely to fluctuate wildly on news.
As we've seen today, the DICE share price was up as much as 96% in early trading but has given back many of those gains and is now around 55% higher than yesterday's close, sitting at $38.70.
This illustrates how speculative a buy DICE stock is and, therefore, more appealing to traders than long-term investors.
Nevertheless, analysts at Stifel Nicolaus and Cantor Fitzgerald have recently published research on the stock with respective Buy and Overweight ratings. However, their target share prices have both been exceeded in today's session.