What happened
Shares of Genelux (GNLX 2.41%) were up 14.8% for the week, as of 9:30 a.m. ET Friday, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The clinical-stage biotech company's stock closed last week at $20.35 and rose to as high as $26.93 on Wednesday. The stock is down more than 6% so far this year.
So what
Genelux specializes in immunotherapies for difficult-to-treat cancers. The company's lead therapy is a chemotherapy drug, Olvi-Vec (olvimulogene nanivacirepvec), which is being tested in late-stage trials to treat heavily pretreated patients with platinum-resistant or refractory ovarian cancer, as well as a planned phase 2 trial as a treatment to ward off the return of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
The company's stock rose after it announced, on July 20, several management changes. Genelux promoted Joseph Cappello from Vice President of Pharmaceutical Development to Chief Technical Officer. Tony Yu, formerly the Vice President of Clinical Trial Operations, was promoted to Senior Vice President of Clinical Development. The company also added two executives who came over from Amgen: Ralph Smalling as Head of Regulatory and Caroline Jewett as Head of Quality.
Now what
The moves were seen as positioning as the company gets closer to its first launch with Olvi-Vec, which is in a phase 3 trial and could soon have its biologics license application sent to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company has seven programs in its pipeline and said in its annual report it had $65 million in cash, enough to fund operations into 2026. The company has come a long way in a short time considering it just went public on Jan. 26.
