IVERIC Bio (ISEE) seeing buyers of 10,000 October $20/$35 call spreads at $3.33 today for over $3.3M in premium bought. Also last week the name saw buyers for 1500 Sep 12.5/20 call spreads.

This comes with shares trading near 13 and their key drug Zimura has upcoming GATHER2 Phase 3 topline in geographic atrophy expected in September. Geographic atrophy is a significant market opportunity with room for multiple players. A name that can see big upside if data is positive and UBS recently sees “many reasons” for why Zimura will be successful in GATHER2, but also notes there is meaningful downside potential to the stock of up to 80% on a missed primary endpoint. In mid July ISEE announced that in a post-hoc analysis from the GATHER1 clinical trial, Zimura showed a reduction of geographic atrophy lesion growth, compared to sham, across all distances from the foveal center point. 

A binary event in biotech is always a lotto ticket but using these call spreads is a good risk defined strategy to employ if intrigued.