Health Check: Local biotech starred in 2024, but the rising tide did not lift all boats

New data shows the 40 key ASX biotechs gained an average 50% in 2024 – but not everyone was a winner.  

A stellar year for biotechs overall – but not all smooth sailing for some. Pic via Getty Images

• The 40 leading biotech stocks gained an average 50% in 2025, according to Biotech Daily

• The trend was not consistent, with only 18 of these individual shares advancing

• Perversely, companies with commercialised drugs and devices did not fare as well as developers

The local biotech sector excelled in 2024 – but not all investors would concur.

According to industry newsletter Biotech Daily, the top 40 stocks gained an impressive 50% on the year although interestingly only 18 of the individual stocks were winners.

Of these, 11 gained by more than 100%. As Winston Churchill said: never was so much owed by so many to so few.

Winners

The most impressive gainer was Mesoblast (ASX:MSB): out of the dog box with a circa tenfold gain.

This was in the lead-up to last month’s US Food & Drug Administration approval of its graft-versus-host disease stem cell treatment, Ryoncil.

Granted, the gains were off the back of a severely depressed share price. The same can be said for inflammatory diseases house Syntara (ASX:SNT), up 640% on promising news from its myelofibrosis program.

Other stars included Orthocell (ASX:OCC), up almost 300% amid “outstanding” clinical trial results and expected US approval of its nerve-repair product Remplir (already approved in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore).

Meanwhile Telix Pharmaceuticals (ASX:TLX) gained 150% although smaller pre-commercial peer Clarity Pharmaceuticals (ASX:CU6) did better, up 168%.

More winners included Opthea (ASX:OPT) (164%), Cynata Therapeutics (ASX:CYP) (145%), Genetic Signatures (ASX:GSS) (130%), Amplia (ASX:ATX) and Dimerix (ASX:DXB) (118%) and EBR Systems (ASX:EBR) (103%).

Losers 

Poor Percheron Therapeutics (ASX:PER) led the falls, with its  shares pummelled 85% because of December’s revelation that its lead program, for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, had flopped.

The numbers show that having a commercialised device isn’t an advantage and that punters prefer trading the blue-sky potential.

ImpediMed (ASX:IPD) is making traction with sales of its lymphedema detection devices, but its shares were 64% off the pace.

Nanosonics (ASX:NAN) shares fell 32% despite the company releasing its next-gen medical probe sterilisation unit. Medical Developments (first-line pain relief) lost 30%.

In the drug sphere, even the heroic Neuren Pharmaceuticals (ASX:NEU) is 50% down, despite a stream of positive news about sales of its Rett syndrome drug.

Down 25%, Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals (ASX:CUV)shares continue to be a mystery wrapped in an enigma (thanks, again Winston) given the company's strong profitability.

Clinuvel's rare skin disease drug is selling well and the company is pursuing the much bigger vitiligo indication and over-the-counter skin beauty treatments.

Clinuvel's learned, European-based CEO Dr Philippe Wolgen had investors rushing for their German and French dictionaries by describing Clinuvel stock as a weglege-aktie or un action pour un tiroir: “a stock under the mattress, one where you turn to every five years and one which will spike in price once clinical catalysts come through.”

At least shareholders are linguistically nourished in the short term.

Pro Medicus joins Big League

The Biotech Daily numbers also show the sector’s Big Three – now expanded to the Big Four with the inclusion of ProMedicus (ASX:PME) – gained 14.5 per cent.

But much of that was attributable to Pro Medicus’s 159% gain for the year. CSL (ASX:CSL) – the biggest healthcare stock – declined 1.5% and Cochlear (ASX:COH) was 3.6% off the pace.

The Big Three/Four are not included in the Top 40 calculations.

Outside of the top 40, other notable winners were cardio and neuroprotective drug developer Nyrada (ASX:NYR), up 320% and imaging house Singular Health Group Ltd (ASX:SHG) which gained almost fivefold.

Also read: ASX healthcare 2024 winners and losers, plus what’s next for 2025

Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX 200 Health Care Index gained a sedate 7%

The index consists of 14 grown-up stocks with a mean market cap of $18 billion, ranging from $136 billion (CSL) to $1 billion.

In the US, the sector remains challenging: the Nasdaq biotechnology in late November was up 10%, but it failed to hold its gains and ended the year 3% lower.

At Stockhead, we tell it as it is. While Dimerix, Orthocell and EBR Systems are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article

Originally published as Health Check: Local biotech starred in 2024, but the rising tide did not lift all boats