TD Cowen Edge - May 22, 2026

Research evidence excerpt

TD Cowen Edge - May 22, 2026

Home | Complete Report

TD SECURITIES (USA) LLC SECTOR NOTE

May 22, 2026 To Be, Or Not To Be, Short The Launch:

Revisited - Ahead Of The Curve

Tyler Van Buren THE TD COWEN INSIGHT

Phil Nadeau, Ph.D.

Sam Rollenhagen We revisit the "short the launch" thesis and find it outdated. While stocks appear to decline

Ikenna Okafor, Ph.D. into approval, post-approval returns were positive on average one year (+34%) and two

Nicholas Lorusso years (+44%) post-launch during 2020-2025, driven by a subset of strong launches. Clinical

Greg W. Torres, Ph.D. differentiation, mid-range markets, and lower expectations drive outperformance, supporting

Tara Bancroft, Ph.D. a more selective investment approach.

Yaron Werber, M.D.

Joseph Thome, Ph.D.

Ritu Baral Our Thesis

Marc Frahm, Ph.D. We revisit an Ahead Of The Curve report published by Phil Nadeau and the TD Cowen

Stacy Ku, Ph.D. team in 2019 to understand stock performance into and following key biotech launches.

TD Cowen Biotechnology Team While stocks typically decline into approval, our more recent analysis of over 100 approvals

from 2020-2025 shows returns turn positive post-approval, with average 34% one-year

and 44% two-year gains. The strong performance contrasts a similar report we conducted

from 2014-2018, where the 1-year average was +6% and 2-year average was -9%. Our

analysis similarly found that dispersion remains wide, but not random, and we identified that

differentiated assets, smaller-cap companies, and launches in mid-range markets ($3-10B)

have been attributes of more recent launch outperformance. Therefore, we believe approval

increasingly marks an inflection to continued value creation rather than a peak, challenging

the historical view that launches destroy value.

What Is Proprietary?