What happened
Shares of Genelux Corporation (GNLX 3.88%) were up by as much as 20.8% for the week on Thursday, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The healthcare company closed last week at $24 and rose to as high as $29 on Thursday. The stock jumped after the company released, late last week, positive phase 2 data on the its lead therapy.
So what
Genelux is a late-stage clinical biotech that focuses on developing immunotherapies to treat difficult-to-treat cancers. The company's lead therapy, Olvi-Vec (olvimulogene nanivacirepvec), is a chemotherapy drug that did well in a phase 2 trial to treat heavily pretreated patients with platinum-resistant or refractory ovarian cancer. The results, published in JAMA Oncology, said the therapy showed a 54% objective response rate in a trial of 27 patients. The company is enrolling patients in a phase 3 trial for the therapy in a collaboration with the GOG Foundation/Partners. Genelux also has Olvi-Vec in trials to treat non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer, and has plans for a trial for the therapy to treat pancreatic cancer. Olvi-Vec is a modified strain of the vaccinia virus which is easily engineered.
Now what
If the therapy continues to be effective and safe, it solves an unmet need for certain patients with ovarian cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ovarian cancer is the second most common gynecologic cancer in the United States, so the therapy could have a large potential target group. Genelux just went public via an initial public offering on Jan. 25 and has not released a quarterly report yet. There's a great deal of potential for the stock, particularly with a late-stage candidate that the company said has the potential for $1 billion in peak annual sales, but the lack of financial data on the company makes it a risky buy for many investors.
