5 Must-Watch Stocks Right Now

4. ImmunityBio Inc. (NASDAQ:IBRX)

ImmunityBio surged by 7.29 percent on Friday to finish at $8.39 apiece, as investors took heart from the company’s optimism for the development of the “World Bank of Natural Killer (NK) Cells,” thanks to the success of its two manufacturing engineering programs.

In an updated report, ImmunityBio Inc. (NASDAQ:IBRX) said it successfully completed NK2022 and NK2023 programs, which evaluated that it could safely collect large volumes of immune cells and enrich them into NK cells.

ImmunityBio Inc. (NASDAQ:IBRX) said that 64 subjects completed apheresis collection across healthy and cancer patients, while collected cells were stored and used for process development and validation.

Following the study, the firm saw preserved NK cell activity and phenotype in both healthy donors and cancer patients, including those who have undergone therapy.

It noted that NK cells, even from cancer patients, can still attack and kill cancer cells effectively, similar to those from healthy donors.

“These data demonstrate that potent NK cell therapy can be manufactured at scale and administered safely, potentially offering a reliable autologous source of potent NK cells,” ImmunityBio Inc. (NASDAQ:IBRX) Executive Chairman Patrick Soon-Shiong said.

“The ability to generate up to 5 billion highly pure NK cells from a single apheresis collection, yielding up to 8-10 therapeutic doses within 12 days, opens the possibility of creating the ‘World Bank of Natural Killer Cells’, with NK cells able to be universally donated to any patient without HLA matching,” he added.