Shares of Coherus Biosciences (NASDAQ: CHRS) closed up 14% on Monday after the company announced the long-awaited approval of its drug, Loqtorzi, by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

In a press release dated late Friday, Coherus and partner Shanghai Junshi Biosciences announced that the U.S. FDA has approved Loqtorzi (toripalimab-tpzi) in all lines of treatment for recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). NPC is a rare tumor of the head and neck which originates in the nasopharynx (near the back of the nose). 

The approval was based on results of Coherus' JUPITER-02 Phase 3 study and its POLARIS-02 Phase 2 study, and is irrespective of a patient's PD-L1 status (a test that measures a protein on cancer cells that stops your immune system from attacking cancer). Loqtorzi is a next-generation programmed death receptor-1 (PD-1) monoclonal antibody that blocks PD-1 ligands PD-L1 and PD-L2, enabling a patient's immune system to activate and kill the tumor.

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Source Fool.com