CELC enters its most consequential stretch in years with a Phase 3 trial win in hand — and roughly 29% of its float still short.
The news broke after market close on May 1. Celcuity announced that its VIKTORIA-1 trial for gedatolisib met its primary endpoint, delivering a clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival in the PIK3CA mutant cohort. The company said it intends to file a supplemental NDA with the FDA. The stock closed at $125.65 on May 1, up 3.5% on the day, extending a 3.8% gain on the week and building on a 10% rise over the past month. The halting question now is how short sellers respond — because the bears have not stepped back.
Short interest is the defining feature of this setup. At approximately 29.3% of the free float, based on ORTEX estimates through April 30, CELC is one of the more heavily shorted names in US biotech. The position has been unusually stable across the past six weeks, oscillating in a tight range between roughly 27.6% and 30.4% FF since late March. The one notable shift came in the week of April 23-24, when SI stepped up from around 27.7% to 29.3% — a jump of roughly 6% in raw shares. That move came just ahead of the VIKTORIA-1 readout, suggesting a portion of the short book was positioned specifically against trial success. Cost to borrow tells a different story from the short interest level itself: at 0.5%, it is practically free, and availability is far from tight. There is no squeeze infrastructure in this borrow market. Short sellers face no mechanical pressure to exit — the decision to cover will be entirely driven by conviction, not costs.
Options positioning shows investors were not hedging into the catalyst with any particular aggression. The put/call ratio ended at 0.30, essentially identical to its 20-day average of 0.296, and the z-score is essentially flat. Compared to the 52-week PCR high of 3.48, the current level signals that options buyers were overwhelmingly positioned for upside rather than protection. That call-heavy tilt, combined with a stock that has risen 10% over the past month, points to a market that was already pricing in a favourable outcome — making the actual beat meaningful, but not a total surprise.
Street coverage is constructive and freshening. Citizens initiated coverage at Market Outperform with a $150 target on April 27 — the most recent action and the most bullish target in the consensus. Stifel raised its target to $125 (from $115) and Needham held at $122, both reiterating Buy ratings on March 26 following the company's earlier positive data signals. The mean analyst price target across the covering group is $134, implying roughly 7% upside to the May 1 close. The consensus skew is firmly bullish, and the Citizens initiation — arriving days before the readout — suggests the Street broadly anticipated the positive data direction. On valuation, the multiples are all negative, which is typical for a pre-profit biotech; the EV/EBITDA and P/E figures carry no useful signal at this stage.
Institutional ownership adds another layer of conviction. Baker Bros. Advisors — the specialist healthcare fund and a 10% owner — held 7.9 million shares as of late March without change, an unchanged large position in a stock that has moved materially higher. Avoro Capital, Perceptive Advisors, and Deerfield all carried meaningful positions as of year-end. State Street and T. Rowe Price added shares in the most recent filing period, with T. Rowe adding 642,000 shares to reach 2.56% of outstanding. The weight of institutional buying over the past quarter has been one-sided to the positive, with most holders who reported changes showing net additions. Insider activity has been limited to routine director sells of modest scale — no C-suite disposals of note in the data window, and no recent insider purchases beyond Baker Bros.' block accumulation last September.
What to watch next is the short book's response to the VIKTORIA-1 win. With 29% of float short, cost to borrow near zero, and the primary endpoint now met, the key question is whether bears treat the sNDA filing timeline as a fresh uncertainty or begin to reduce exposure into the FDA review period — a process that typically takes six to twelve months from submission. The next scheduled earnings event is May 13, which will add a financial context layer to what has just become a structurally different story for gedatolisib.
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