Investors who bought Poolbeg Pharma PLC (AIM:POLB, OTCQB:POLBF) stock last week would be forgiven for feeling rather smug with the shares up 41% in the last five trading days.
The catalyst appears to have been the award of a €2.3mln Irish government grant to a consortium involving Poolbeg that is developing an oral vaccine platform.
The movement also probably also reflects the progress made by the capital-light biotech company, which is also developing treatments for respiratory infections.
Earlier this month Poolbeg revealed it had uncovered a number of drug candidates using state-of-the-art AI technology and, in a separate announcement, said had in-licensed a new anti-infective.
This in turn followed a flurry of earlier positive announcements around partnering and in-licensing deals.
In a recent note, finnCap, the company’s corporate broker said the shares were worth 15p each.
Notwithstanding the recent move higher, that’s a more than 50% premium to the current share price of 9.48p.