You've undoubtedly heard the adage, "What goes up can come down." That's a true statement. However, what goes up can go even higher.
Three Motley Fool contributors believe they've identified high-flying stocks that could soar even more in 2025. Here's why they picked three biotech stocks: Summit Therapeutics (SMMT -3.33%), Verona Pharma (VRNA 1.90%), and Viking Therapeutics (VKTX -0.77%).
Another momentous year
Keith Speights (Summit Therapeutics): Summit Therapeutics was founded in 2003. I'd argue that the drugmaker's most important year so far, though, was 2024 with its stock skyrocketing 584%. And I predict that 2025 will be another momentous year for Summit.
Chinese biopharmaceutical company Akeso delivered the big catalyst for Summit last year. In May 2024, Akeso reported overwhelmingly positive results from a late-stage clinical study of ivonescimab as a first-line treatment of patients with PD-L1-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Ivonescimab thumped Merck's blockbuster drug Keytruda in improving progression-free survival rates.
Summit already owned the license to market ivonescimab in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Japan before Akeso's news broke. The company quickly (and wisely, in my view) moved to expand its licensing territories to include Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Why do I think Summit will enjoy another great year in 2025? It plans to announce top-line data from a phase 3 trial of ivonescimab around halfway through the year. I expect more positive results that could set the stage for Summit to file for U.S. approval of the immunotherapy as a second-line treatment for NSCLC.
That should only be the start, though. Summit is already enrolling patients in a late-stage study of ivonescimab in combination with chemotherapy as a first-line NSCLC treatment. It's ramping up another late-stage study of the drug as a monotherapy in the first-line setting. The company hopes to expand clinical development into other types of cancer.
Verona Pharma still has lots of room to soar higher
David Jagielski (Verona Pharma): Verona Pharma has been one of the hottest drug stocks to own over the past year, with its share price rising by 200% during that time frame. The big catalyst for the stock came in June of last year when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Ohtuvayre for the maintenance treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. After that, it was off to the races for the stock, as it went from trading around $15 per share to now being worth more than $50.
Ohtuvayre is a blockbuster drug, with sales potentially topping the $1 billion mark by 2029, according to analyst projections. The company is in the early stages of rolling out the treatment but recently released preliminary results for the last three months of 2024, and net sales for Ohtuvayre are expected to come in around $36 million. CEO David Zaccardelli says that the drug is off to an "exceptionally strong start" with more than 16,000 prescriptions already filled.
Verona's stock could build on its gains from last year depending on how well the rollout of Ohtuvayre goes. And if the company is able to shrink its losses (they have totaled $154 million over the trailing 12 months) and improve its overall financial position, 2025 could be another great year for this pharma company.
There is more upside for this exciting biotech
Prosper Junior Bakiny (Viking Therapeutics): Last year, Viking Therapeutics rose in prominence thanks to strong clinical progress in what might be the hottest therapeutic area in the industry: chronic weight management. Though the mid-cap biotech might not perform as well in 2025 as in 2024, the stock could still deliver another strong performance this year. Viking Therapeutics’ leading candidate, VK2735, should start late-stage studies in weight loss.
Meanwhile, the company is developing an oral version of this medicine, another promising endeavor. Anti-obesity therapies are currently administered via injection, but some patients would prefer an oral pill. While several drugmakers are ahead of Viking Therapeutics on this project, this smaller biotech has more upside potential than its larger peers if it records more positive clinical progress, given its size. Further, Viking Therapeutics reported promising pre-clinical results from another potential weight treatment late last year.
More important than whether this (very) early-stage candidate will amount to anything, it shows that Viking Therapeutics is keeping the innovative wheel rolling. It’s also worth pointing out that the company doesn’t just focus on anti-obesity medicines. The company’s VK2809, which should also start phase 3 trials this year, targets metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, a disease with a high unmet need. And it is looking to advance VK0214, an investigational treatment for X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (a rare genetic disease with no approved treatment option) to phase 2 studies.
Viking Therapeutics is slowly and surely marching forward, and with potential catalysts in the form of clinical readouts and phase 3 study initiations this year, the stock could, once again, soar.
