The biotech industry continues to witness developments and improvements in drug research in 2021 while withstanding the impact of the pandemic remarkably well. While development updates related to COVID-19 medicines/vaccines continued to take center stage this year, there were positive developments in the biotech sector in other pipeline areas too.

In this article, we discuss four companies, whose stocks have already doubled this year. Let us understand the factors, which drove these stocks.

BioNTech BNTX

BioNTech has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and its stock is up 143.2% this year so far. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

BioNTech has been riding high on the success of it and partner Pfizer’s two-shot vaccine for COVID-19, BNT162b2/Comirnaty. The vaccine was developed in record time and is now approved for emergency/temporary use in individuals 16 years of age and older in 91 countries worldwide. As of May 3, 2021, Pfizer/BioNTech had shipped approximately 430 million doses of the vaccine to 91 countries, bringing in significant revenues for BioNTech and Pfizer. Moreover, Pfizer/BioNTech have signed agreements to deliver over 1.8 billion doses of BNT162b2 in 2021.

Last week, the FDA expanded BNT162b2’s Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to allow vaccinating adolescents aged 12-15 years old. Meanwhile studies are ongoing to expand the authorization of BNT162b2 to additional population groups.

Meanwhile, BioNTech is moving into later stage testing for three cancer programs in the near term and plans to launch multiple new products over the next five years.

Ocugen OCGN

This #3 (Hold) Ranked stock is up 369.9% this year so far.

In February, Ocugen entered into a definitive agreement with India-based Bharat Biotech to co-develop and commercialize the latter’s COVID-19 vaccine, COVAXIN, for the U.S. market. This collaboration,which gave Ocugen U.S. rights to this lucrative vaccine candidate, has driven the stock’s price this yearso far. Ocugen is making progress toward EUA for COVAXIN in the United States. Ocugen is also in discussions with BARDA, regarding the U.S. government’s support of COVAXIN.

The company is also simultaneously driving its ophthalmology gene therapy pipeline toward clinical studies. It plans to submit an investigational new drug (“IND”) application for its gene therapy candidate, OCU400, in the second half of this year. The IND application is seeking FDA’s approval to initiate two early-stage studies, anticipated to start by the end of 2021.

Rubius Therapeutics RUBY

Rubius Therapeutics has a Zacks Rank #3. Its stock has risen 242.7% this year so far.