Jim Cramer openly shares his opinions about various stocks, and on September 3, 2026, during an episode of CNBC’s Mad Money, he gave his two cents on Nuvation Bio (NUVB).
A caller asked about the surging biopharma name, and Cramer answered in five plain words: “This is a pure spec.”
That is short for pure speculation, which implies a stock that trades on what a drug might do someday, not on the money the company is making right now.
His warning came as the stock climbed on real news, which is exactly what makes Nuvation such a tricky call for investors.
Cramer has hosted Mad Money since 2005 and ran a hedge fund for years before that, so when he flags a stock as too risky for most people, it carries weight.
What Cramer means when he calls Nuvation Bio a pure spec
Cramer is not saying the clinical pipeline is bad. He is saying the stock has almost nothing steady underneath it yet.
Nuvation Bio is an early commercial-stage oncology company. It has one approved drug on the market, but most of its stock value still rests on pipeline drugs moving through trials rather than on steady profits.
Wall Street expects the company to post a net loss for the full year ending in December 2026, according to StockAnalysis.
Until an approved drug generates large, steady sales, Nuvation leans on its cash to keep funding research.
That’s why it has the “pure spec” label. Good news can send the shares up, and a single bad trial result can cut them in half.
The FDA win that has investors piling in
The optimism is not baseless.
In August 2026, the FDA granted Fast Track Designation to Nuvation’s experimental brain cancer drug, Safusidenib, according to a press release.
Fast Track is a status the FDA gives drugs for serious diseases with few options, and it speeds up the review process.
Safusidenib targets IDH1-mutant glioma, a brain tumor that’s hard to treat, and it is now in a crucial late-stage trial.
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The company also has a drug already on the market. Its lung cancer pill, IBTROZI, became the most prescribed treatment of its kind for new patients over the first five months of 2026.
That early traction is why some analysts are far more upbeat than Cramer.
Why analysts see much more room to run than Cramer does
Wall Street’s price targets tell a very different story from the Mad Money warning.
The average 12-month target sits at $14.5, which points to roughly 113% upside from the stock’s recent price near $6.80.
More Biopharma Stocks:
- JPMorgan sees 100% upside in overlooked cancer drug stock
- FDA approves first broad RAS pancreatic cancer pill
- Eli Lilly raises the stakes in $2.88 billion autoimmune buyout
Several firms have moved their targets higher after the company’s successful lung cancer drug launch and its recent brain cancer trial milestone.
The gap between the analysts and Cramer comes down to time frame and risk tolerance.
Analysts are pricing in what could go right over the next year. Cramer is reminding investors what happens if the drug trials disappoint.
How investors can handle a stock like Nuvation
If you are tempted by the story, Cramer’s own rules offer a sensible guardrail.
He has long argued that a speculative bet should be a small part of your portfolio, money you could lose without wrecking your finances.
The bulk of your savings belongs in diversified, lower-risk holdings.
Here are a few practical steps for investors:
- Keep the position small, and treat it as a satellite holding rather than a core one.
- Watch the cash runway in upcoming quarterly filings, since a company running low may issue new stock and dilute your shares.
- Consider taking partial profits on big FDA-driven rallies instead of expecting the climb to last.
Nuvation Bio has real progress behind its rise. The catch is that clinical-stage biotech can reverse quickly, so the position size you choose matters as much as the stock you pick.
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