$SANA DD - Short & Sweet: Sana immune evasive tech has unlocked previously impossible therapies -tens/hundreds of billions of dollars worth
SANA is the first and only one to demonstrate that cells from another person can survive in a HUMAN without immunosuppressant drugs (they literally just demonstrated this in a HUMAN a mere 3 weeks ago, see link below). Sana modified the cells in a specific way to make them evade immune rejection (they have patents on this). With Sana's tech, you can now transplant lab grown cells without fear of rejection.
Since people know how to grow pancreatic islets in the lab (insulin producing/blood sugar regulating cells), they can now implant these in patients and cure type 1 diabetes with Sana's immune evasive tech. Type 1 diabetes is a massive market alone, but Sana's tech is literally applicable to ANY CELL TYPE. Unlocks all sorts of cell therapies previously not possible. Anyone developing a cell therapy, e.g. Replacement liver tissue, blood vessels, cancer killing T cells, etc... can use Sana's tech to make sure the cells aren't rejected. The alternative to using Sana's tech is immunosuppressant drugs, but these are severely flawed and nowhere close to 100% effective - any transplanted lab-grown cells would ultimately die even with immunosuppressants. On top of this fatal flaw, immunosuppresants weaken the patient's immune system, meaning the patient can die from simple infections that a normal healthy person would survive. So Sana's anti-rejection tech is 110% ultra important and necessary for lab-grown cell therapies to survive in a patient. Also, the patients with Sana cells have normal immune systems since they don't need immunosuppressant drugs, so the patients with Sana cells don't need to worry about dying from simple infections.
Sana will make money licensing their immune evasive tech to others and/or developing the cell therapies themselves. So they have an immediate way to make money and longer term options to develop their own cell therapies for even more income. Market size is easily hundred billion plus annually for all these cell therapies, many of which aren't even currently possible (but are possible now due to Sana tech). Compare this to Sana's current market cap of $800 million, healthy balance sheet with $200 million cash, and massive money behind them in the form of the world's largest biotech investors. $SANA undervalued much? I think so.
Source: Me, a stem cell biologist and biomedical engineer working on cell therapy stuff for over a decade.
SANA announced the first demonstration of their immune evasive tech working in a human on Jan. 7, 2025 (https://ir.sana.com/news-releases/news-release-details/sana-biotechnology-announces-positive-clinical-results-type-1). Prior to this, they had done it in monkeys for up to 10 months (they just stopped the experiment after that amount of time), but this is first time it has been shown to work in a human (and their first try of it in a human as well). Photo of them transplanting the immune evasive islets in a human arm here: [https://imgur.com/a/vNoXs3D](https://imgur.com/a/vNoXs3D) It's actually a super simple/inexpensive procedure. Easier than wisdom teeth removal. The cells can be stored at a doctor's office in cheap liquid nitrogen (think special ultra cold refrigerator that's not really expensive).
Positions or ban:
Ok, here's how I'm playing it. Obviously, shares is the safest, but given the short term volatility, I've opted for mostly a large amount of short dated otm calls (see pic below). Also, this is wsb no?
https://preview.redd.it/ym5eesfcdxee1.png?width=1064&format=png&auto=webp&s=417699c776aae18fb0599cb89e32ef61133e51fb
I want a giant long term position, but given the volatility of the stock, I opted for many cheap out of the money calls. This way I don't expose too much of my capital, yet can still reap the rewards of any explosive upside. To be honest, I don't see why this stock couldn't be $10 next week, it's grossly undervalued at the current market price, but market will do what market wants to do. Within a month or two, I expect that $SANA will have either 1) taken off and ripped higher as people realize its potential or 2) consolidated at some lower price. In scenario 1) my options will have printed sweet tendies that I can let marinate long term if I choose. In scenario 2) I'll be able to establish a large share position at a lower price.
SANA will have many catalysts this year as they continue to report survival data from the cells they implanted in the first human subject, as well as from other trials using their immune evasive cancer killing T cells. The best catalyst possible would be if they announced a license agreement or some sort of non-dilutive investment that gave them a significant amount of cash upfront. To me, this seems a very real possibility. $10+ seems to me extremely likely this year.
Update: Short interest on SANA is now a ridiculous 40%. Given the value of this company's tech, you'd have to be absolutely crazy to short it.