BI biotech-pharma catalyst calendar: A solution for tracking milestone timelines

Keeping track of the pipelines at biotech and pharmaceutical companies is no small task, yet it’s integral to market players including investors, analysts and companies within the health care industry.

Bloomberg Intelligence’s biotech-pharma catalyst calendar offers a solution for health care professionals needing access to this fast-changing data, including robust drug-specific event calendars. Sharing her expert insights on this unique data set is Grace Guo, a research analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence who compiles and analyzes information about critical event dates and milestones for pipeline drugs.

Q: What information does the catalyst calendar cover?

A: We cover more than 300 companies in the calendar, mostly U.S. and European companies, as well as a small number of companies from China, Australia, Japan and elsewhere. The calendar is intended to show upcoming milestone events and the expected timeline for those events. Regulatory milestones include PDUFA dates (FDA action goal dates), filing for FDA or EMA approval, FDA advisory meetings, and more. We also track clinical milestones such as readouts of data from clinical trials, completion of the enrollment of clinical trials, initiation of clinical trial and presentations at medical conferences.

Q: Why is it important to track these dates, and how can this data help my analysis?

A: The biotech and pharma industry is very event-driven. A lot of times, stock movements are based on a milestone event happening. Players in the industry need to know what event to expect, at what timeframe. Traders, for instance, may not be familiar with the biotech or pharmaceutical industry but are looking for trading opportunities. With the catalyst calendar, they can easily find events coming up in the next week or two and maybe find some opportunities to trade.

The calendar is also used by industry experts. Corporate clients, and advisors or consultants, use the calendar for competitive intelligence-gathering. Both sell-side and buy-side analysts generally maintain their own timetable for companies they cover but need to check other sources for validation. These specialists can compare notes and validate their estimates. Also, sometimes, buy-side analysts can leverage our calendar so that they don’t have to undertake this time consuming task themselves

Nowadays, medicine is more and more geared towards precision medicine, so drugs are typically viewed by class. With the catalyst calendar, people can filter and search by disease, molecular target, as well as date, company, product name and event type. They can use it to find which companies are players in a particular disease area, or filter the calendar to see which other companies are developing drugs in a specific class or targeting a particular pathway, as well as the upcoming timelines for those drugs or class of drugs.

Q: How do you source the data?

A: We do all the intelligence-gathering ourselves from publicly-available data such as company press releases, quarterly reports, presentations at health care conferences or earnings calls, presentations at investor events at medical conferences, and more. Basically, we aggregate information from every possible venue where companies publicly disclose information.

We gather all the information and also do our own analysis to come up with estimates. Coming up with dates is not as straightforward as extracting data from company disclosures. It takes a lot of analysis to put the information into context. For example, a company might disclose a date range for an expected FDA approval timeline, say the second quarter of the year. But investors very much want to know a date.

We fill in gaps with Bloomberg Intelligence’s proprietary analysis and our own estimates. In order to come up with date estimates, you have to understand the industry, regulations the FDA uses in their new drug approval process. Clinical trials are complex processes with multiple potential timelines. Picking the most likely, most accurate timeline requires human expertise and interpretation.

Q: How might the catalyst calendar help market professionals with their challenges?

A: Companies can try to do this themselves, but may find it too time-consuming or requiring very specific expertise.

Having the calendar is like having an expert on your team. We have deep experience with health care data, and users have unlimited access to these timelines that they can leverage anytime. In addition to updating the catalyst calendar every week, we also hold a weekly call to discuss key events of the coming week, as well as a weekly publication ahead of the call to ensure that clients are getting the most up-to-date information.

Like all Bloomberg Intelligence data and research, the catalyst calendar is a complimentary part of the Bloomberg Terminal offering.