Let’s get personal for a second (don’t get too worried, I’m not gonna get that personal). As a dad with a toddler who’s fought eczema for years now, I’ve tried just about every remedy on Earth. Lotions, steroid creams, oat baths, overpriced prescriptions… heck, I even rubbed honey on him once like a biscuit at Cracker Barrel. There has been some relief, but we’re still looking for a miracle. 

Naturally, when I saw that a biotech company named Nektar Therapeutics… just released legit Phase 2b trial results for an eczema drug and the stock mooned 287% in one day. I dropped what I was doing (which was probably Googling “eczema cure DIY”) and started paying attention.

The drug, rezpegaldesleukin (bless you), just crushed its Phase 2b REZOLVE-AD trial. In the study, people with moderate-to-severe eczema saw their symptoms improve by 53% to 61% after 16 weeks on the drug. For comparison, those on the placebo (a fake treatment) only improved by 31%... meaning this wasn’t a fluke or natural healing. The drug had a clear, measurable effect.

Even better, the drug uses a regulatory T-cell approach, which pretty much retrains your immune system like a toddler sleep training program… except this one doesn’t end in tears and screaming all night long. It actually seems to work.

That kind of clinical success didn’t stay under the radar for long. This thing went from biotech baby to Wall Street’s newest crush almost overnight. Just days after the trial data dropped, H.C. Wainwright’s Arthur came out swinging with a wild price target jump… from $6.50 all the way to $120 per share. That’s a 1,746% increase if you’re keeping score. 

The market agreed, with shares exploding over 150% in a single day. Friday, the stock’s cooled off a bit and is trading around $25–26, but analysts are still bullish. The average price target sits at $96.80, which implies a potential upside of around 276% from here.

So why the hype? For starters, the eczema market is massive. Over 31 million Americans suffer from some form of it, and while we do have treatments like Dupixent, Adbry, and Ebglyss, they don’t work for everyone. Many patients don’t respond well or deal with frustrating side effects. That leaves the door wide open for something better… and this drug (I’m not gonna type out the name again) might just be that better option. 

The potential here is huge. If this drug gets FDA approval, analysts estimate peak sales could reach north of $2 billion annually. And Nektar, which was previously a $250 million company mostly living off of royalty revenue, would suddenly be in the big leagues. Naturally, this makes them prime acquisition bait. Big Pharma is always sniffing around for promising assets, especially in dermatology, and Nektar’s got the glowing Phase 2b data to back it up.

But before you cash out the vacation fund and go full YOLO on this thing, let’s pump the brakes. This is still a speculative biotech play… meaning it lives in that magical zone where hope is high, but revenue is nonexistent. Sure, the Phase 2b data looks great, but Phase 3 is where most promising drugs go to die (usually after burning through millions and your optimism). These final trials are bigger, slower, and more expensive than expected (kind of like every home renovation ever), and even stellar early data doesn’t guarantee squat… just ask any biotech bagholder still waiting on FDA approval from 2019.

And let’s not forget who we’re dealing with. Nektar, despite the sudden Wall Street lovefest, still has zero approved drugs and hasn’t sniffed profitability. In Q1, they lit $41 million on fire, leaving them with $95 million in cash… enough to survive maybe another year, unless they tap the magical money tree known as dilution (aka “surprise! your shares are worth less now”) or take on debt (because biotech and interest payments are such a fun combo).

That said, while it’s what I’d categorize as a lottery ticket… unlike most scratch-offs, this one just showed you a glimpse of the winning numbers. The science looks real, the market is massive, and the momentum is impossible to ignore. Might be worth a few shares if you’re feeling dangerous.

At the time this article was published Stocks.News does not hold positions in companies mentioned in article.