Why Ziopharm Oncology Shares Zoomed Higher Today

Shares of Ziopharm Oncology (NASDAQ: ZIOP) were zooming 13.1% higher as of 3:50 p.m. EDT on Monday. The big jump came after the company announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Rare Pediatric Disease Designation to Ad-RTS-hIL-12 with veledimex (also known as Controlled IL-12) in treating diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), a type of brain tumor.

The FDA only grants Rare Pediatric Disease Designation to therapeutic candidates that treat diseases that meet specific criteria. These diseases must be serious and life-threatening and primarily affect children age 18 and under. The diseases also must impact fewer than 200,000 individuals in the United States. DIPG checks off these boxes.

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Source Fool.com