ImmunityBio (NASDAQ: IBRX) stock price has gone parabolic as investors cheer the recent approval of Anktiva, its cancer drug. It has risen for two straight days and is now sitting at its highest level since September 2021. It is up by over 770% from its lowest point in 2023, giving it a market cap of almost $6 billion.
Future acquisition likely?ImmunityBio shares have been in a strong bull run this year, helped by the recent FDA approval of Anktiva, a drug for treating patients with BCG-unresponsive non-muscle invasive bladder cancer with carcinoma.
The approval opens the door for the company to commercialise the drug for a disease that affects thousands of patients in the United States and more others globally. It expects to start selling the drug in the US by mid-May this year.
The stock also jumped after the company released positive results of Anktiva combined with Checkpoint inhibitors in non-small cell lung cancer. It has now scheduled a meeting with the FDA in June this year to discuss these results. The company’s CEO said:
“The results we noted with the completion of the QUILT 3.055 basket trial across multiple tumor types in patients with late-stage cancers for whom standard of care plus checkpoints failed, validates our hypothesis that orchestration of NK cells with killer T cells and memory T cells could result in meaningful clinical improvements to current standards of care.”
Therefore, there is a likelihood that the company will continue generating strong financial results later this year as it starts to commercialize its Anktiva drug.
There is also a likelihood that the company could become a buyout target as big companies seek to gain their market share. Some of the potential acquirers are firms like Roche, Celgene, Novartis, Merck, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
The risk for investors is that the company could raise capital as its stock jumps. That’s because the company generated a net loss of over $583 million last year after losing $416 million a year earlier. This loss-making will likely continue for a while. ImmunityBio ended the last quarter with about $265 million in cash.
A key positive about all this is that ImmunityBio is mostly held by insiders. 79.6% of all shares are held by insiders, including Patrick Soon-Shiong, who recently provided financing to the company.
ImmunityBio stock price forecast
The weekly chart shows that the IBRX stock price has been in a strong bullish trend in the past few months. It has now crossed the key resistance point at $7.76, its highest point in September last year.
The stock has remained above the 50-week and 25-week Exponential Moving Averages (EMA). At the same time, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) has moved to the overbought level.
Therefore, there is a likelihood that the stock will continue rising in the long term. If this happens, the next point to watch will be the psychological point at $12.
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