Wednesday’s Pre-Market: Here’s What You Need to Know Before the Market Opens

U.S. stock futures jumped on Wednesday as investors await the first-quarter current account report, to be released today. Furthermore, June data related to surveys of U.S. manufacturing and service firms by purchasing managers and new home sales data for May are set to be released today.

S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq futures were in the green at the time of writing, with 0.1%, 0.1%, and 0.1% trading higher, respectively.

Companies that are expected to report earnings before the market opens include IHS Markit Ltd. (INFO), Patterson Companies Inc (PDCO), and Winnebago Industries (WGO). Concentrix (CNXC), H. B. Fuller Company (FUL), and KB Home (KBH) are expected to report after the market close.

Acasti Pharma, Inc. (ACST) was the most actively traded stock as well as the biggest gainer in pre-market trading as the stock jumped 26.7% at the time of writing. Recently, the biopharmaceutical innovator announced its results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021. Additionally, the company provided an update on its planned acquisition of Grace Therapeutics and the ongoing strategic process for CaPre.

Net loss reported for the year was $0.17 per share, down 43.3% year-over-year. R&D costs decreased significantly to $2.9 million, while G&A expenses were $4.7 million, up 2.2%.

Acasti CEO Jan D’Alvise SAID, “In parallel with progressing the acquisition of Grace, we have received interest and are evaluating a variety of strategic options for CaPre. We remain highly encouraged by the outlook for our overall business prospects and look forward to providing further updates to shareholders on our strategic processes as it relates to both the Grace acquisition as well as our plans for CaPre.”

Gemini Therapeutics (GMTX) was the biggest laggard in pre-market trading, as the stock plunged around 30% at the time of writing. Recently, the clinical-stage precision medicine company, which develops novel therapeutic compounds, disclosed initial data from its Phase 2a ReGAtta study of GEM103 in patients with geographic atrophy (GA) secondary to dry AMD, as of May 2021. The ongoing clinical trial is designed to evaluate safety and tolerability in the late-stage development program.

Gemini Therapeutics’ CMO Samuel Barone commented, “The ReGAtta study includes novel analysis of the biological pathways involved in GA and we are encouraged by GEM103’s activity seen at this early point and look forward to the additional analyses expected later this year.”

In M&A news, uniQure N.V. (QURE), a leading gene therapy company, which advances transformative gene therapies to treat patients with severe medical needs, entered into a cash deal to snap up Corlieve Therapeutics and its lead program, AMT-260, for €46.3 million. AMT-260 is an advanced gene therapy program for the treatment of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).

The acquisition will expand uniQure’s pipeline of innovative gene therapies for the treatment of neurological disorders. Additionally, it will reinforce the company’s global leadership in the development of gene therapies using miRNA silencing technology.

uniQure CEO Matt Kapusta commented, “The acquisition of Corlieve provides an extraordinary opportunity to transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of patients around the world suffering from epilepsy and aligns with our vision of pursuing unmet medical needs for disorders that impact large populations and can be addressed with gene therapies directed to the CNS and liver.”

Meanwhile, Blackstone Group’s (BX) Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) has inked a deal to acquire Home Partners of America (HPA). The transaction, which awaits certain approvals and customary closing conditions, values the Chicago-based firm at $6 billion and is set to close in the third quarter.

Through the acquisition, Blackstone Real Estate will be able to access a vast portfolio of high-quality homes across the U.S. Furthermore, HPA will join with a strong and experienced management team initiating a resident-led business model.

BREIT’s Senior Managing Director Jacob Werner commented, “The fundamental premise of the HPA platform is to provide residents with the opportunity to live in their chosen home with the option to purchase it — we intend to build on that goal and expand access to homes across the U.S.”

In other news, AT&T (T) has taken certain steps to fight against calls initiated by fraudsters. As part of its spam-swatting drive, the carrier is now blocking more than 1 billion spam calls every month. Furthermore, suspected spam calls are labeled by the company, giving users the option to either answer or cancel such phone calls.

“We are authenticating and verifying hundreds of millions of calls per day, including calls across our wireless network and calls exchanged with the two other leading US wireless providers. We’re also using data from STIR/SHAKEN to help us achieve high accuracy in our blocking and labeling,” AT&T commented in a press release.

Meanwhile, Peloton (PTON) has revealed a new corporate wellness program with the target of reaching new users and growing its subscription base. Peloton Corporate Wellness is the company’s new program that will offer an array of fitness products.

In the beginning, the wellness program will be open to corporations in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and Germany. Australia will be added to the mix before the end of this year. Notably, through the program, the company intends to make it easy for corporations to provide employees with access to unique mental, physical, and health resources.

Peloton’s President William Lynch said, “Over the years we’ve worked hard to help our Members achieve healthier and happier lifestyles. Peloton Corporate Wellness is the natural extension for us to be able to scale that offering. Together with our Corporate Wellness partners, we’re now able to share the experience with millions more while also driving stronger culture and community within the workplace.”

Moderna, Inc. (MRNA), known for its messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines, agreed to provide 150 million additional COVID-19 vaccine doses to the European Commission, to be delivered in 2022.

With the recent purchase, the confirmed order commitment from the European Commission reached 460 million doses. The agreement includes the option for the European Commission to buy other COVID-19 vaccine candidates from the company’s pipeline. However, the delivery of Moderna’s updated variant booster vaccine candidate will begin in 2022, following European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) approval.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said, “We are encouraged by the initial booster data, which reinforce our confidence that our booster strategy should be protective against current variants. We will remain proactive as the virus evolves by leveraging the flexibility of our mRNA platform to stay ahead of emerging variants.”