Why Iovance Is Up Nearly 11% Today

Shares of biopharma company Iovance (NASDAQ: IOVA) are poised to end Wednesday's trading session almost 11% higher than Tuesday's close, following an encouraging observation from investment analytics outfit Truist. Namely, the odds of an approval of one of its drug prospects seemingly improved after a rival drug developer was granted permission to expand its trials of a similar therapy.

Investors needed a bit of help connecting the dots, but the logic holds up under scrutiny.

On Monday, Instil Bio (NASDAQ: TIL) announced the Food and Drug Administration had cleared the company's request to widen the scope of its current phase 2 trial of ITIL-168. ITIL-168 is a cellular therapy made using tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, or TILs, from an individual patient's own tumor tissue. While adding melanoma patients with a relapse after other inhibitors have failed is a far cry from a final approval, it does loosely suggest the FDA sees an upside with the drug and approach.

Source Fool.com