Nine stocks posted strong gains on Thursday, bucking a mixed performance in the broader market, driven by positive company-specific developments that boosted buying appetite. The list was notably dominated by biopharmaceutical stocks.
Meanwhile, only the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 finished in the green, climbing 1.73 percent and 0.41 percent, respectively. The Nasdaq dropped by 0.09 percent.
Indices aside, we name the 10 top-performing companies during the session and break down the reasons behind their gains.
To come up with the list, we considered the stocks with a market capitalization of $2 billion and 5 million shares in trading volume.
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels
9. Recursion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:RXRX)
Recursion Pharmaceuticals snapped two straight days of losses on Thursday, surging 9.51 percent to close at $3.80 as investors began repositioning portfolios ahead of key business updates next week.
In a notice to investors, Recursion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:RXRX) said that it is set to participate in the Goldman Sachs 47th Annual Global Healthcare Conference on Tuesday, June 9, where investors are expected to watch for updates about its pipeline.
One of its pipelines under clinical trial is the REC-4881, an orally available inhibitor to treat familial adenomatous polyposis—a genetically defined disease driven by APC loss.
According to Recursion Pharmaceuticals Inc., it has initiated an engagement with the Food and Drug Administration to align on a potential registrational study design, with an update expected in the second half of 2026.
In other news, Recursion Pharmaceuticals Inc. posted an improvement in its earnings performance in the first quarter of the year, having slashed its net loss by 42 percent to $117.5 million from $202.5 million in the same period last year.
Total revenues, which come solely from collaboration agreements, fell by 56 percent to $6.47 million from $14.7 million year-on-year due to lower revenues from Roche following the completion of certain project phases in the period earlier.
8. Tempus AI Inc. (NASDAQ:TEM)
Tempus AI saw its share prices jump by 10 percent on Thursday to finish at $52.56 apiece, as investors cheered its formation of a consortium alongside two health institutions to support the development of an open-source digital pathology platform and viewer.
In an updated report, Tempus AI Inc. (NASDAQ:TEM) said that it joined forces with Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), under which the listed firm will open-source the existing Paige Image Management System to seed the collaborative, open ecosystem. It will operate independently of its current digital pathology commercial offering.
Meanwhile, YNHH and MSK will contribute to defining the vision, governance, and strategic direction of the project.
The parties expect the consortium to add more members over time.
In other news, Tempus AI Inc. also launched on Monday a next-generation sequencing test called xH that uses a whole-genome sequencing approach for the detection of actionable oncologic targets in peripheral blood and bone marrow samples from patients with hematologic malignancies.
Tempus AI Inc. first announced the xH assay for research use only in January 2025. Its performance was established in an analytical validation study using 235 unique specimens, including whole blood, bone marrow, and cell lines.
In addition to high accuracy, the xH assay demonstrated excellent precision, with a positive predictive value of 98.97 percent for single-nucleotide variants and indels, and 100 percent for structural variants. These results indicate a low false-positive rate and support high confidence in the assay’s reported genomic findings.
7. Applied Optoelectronics Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI)
Applied Optoelectronics saw its share prices increase by 10.22 percent on Thursday to close at $202.89 apiece, buoyed by Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang’s optimistic comments about the optics industry.
At the ongoing Computex conference in Taiwan, Huang validated the importance of the optics industry in the future of artificial intelligence, saying that the right strategy “is to scale up with copper as long as you can. After that, you scale up further with optics.”
“You scale out with optics, and you scale across with optics. So you use optics wherever you must, you use copper wherever you can,” he noted.
Applied Optoelectronics Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI) rallied alongside its counterparts, namely Marvell Technology, Credo Technology Group, Coherent Corp., and Lumentum Holdings, among others.
Further boosting sentiment was Rosenblatt’s highly optimistic outlook for the sector, saying that it expects key players to expand production capacities by approximately 12x through 2030 to support the growing demands from AI.
However, it noted the expansion rate will remain slower than the rapid demand growth from AI.
Rosenblatt noted that last year alone, the supply of indium phosphide-based Datacom components lagged by 50 percent. However, this gives room for huge growth and expansion opportunities for key players such as Applied Optoelectronics Inc..
For its part, Applied Optoelectronics Inc. is underway with the expansion of its new manufacturing facility in SugarLand, Texas, as it aims to support the growing needs of its customers.
The company initially programmed $150 million in capital expenditures for the site development, and later doubled it to $300 million by the end of 2027.
6. Intellia Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA)
Intellia Therapeutics snapped a three-day losing streak on Thursday, soaring 13.29 percent to close at $14.75 apiece, as investors positioned portfolios ahead of the phase 3 results of its lonvo-z study in hereditary angioedema (HAE).
In a notice on its website, Intellia Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA) said that it would present the late-breaking results at the European Academy of Allergy & Clinical Immunology (EAACI) Annual Congress 2026 in Istanbul, Turkiye on June 12-15.
Lonvo-z is an experimental gene-editing therapy designed as a potential one-time functional cure for HAE, a rare, painful, and potentially fatal genetic condition that causes sudden, severe swelling in the face, limbs, and airways.
In April this year, Intellia Therapeutics Inc. submitted a biologics license application with the Food and Drug Administration for the approval of lonvo-z following positive topline data, having met its primary and all key secondary endpoints.
“If approved, lonvo-z will become the world’s first in vivo CRISPR-based gene editing therapy,” Intellia Therapeutics Inc. President and CEO John Leonard said.
“The promising results … reinforce our conviction that lonvo-z could revolutionize how HAE is treated for many patients, with the potential to free most of them from both attacks and the need for ongoing therapy with just one dose. We look forward to our continued engagement with the FDA as we seek to ease many of the burdens for people living with HAE,” he noted.
5. Redwire Corp. (NYSE:RDW)
Redwire finished Thursday’s trading session sweet, soaring 15.09 percent to close at $21.43 after bagging a contract to grow strawberries in space.
In a statement, Redwire Corp. (NYSE:RDW) said that it was awarded by Astrobiome Space—a Luxembourg-based biotech company pioneering microbiome solutions for regenerative space agriculture—to grow strawberries and test proprietary soil enhancement product inside the Redwire Greenhouse systems while on board the International Space Station.
The test crops are expected to begin this month in preparation for the ISS flight.
Astrobiome Space’s biostimulant—developed from microbes adapted to the extreme space environments—will be used to grow the first wild strawberries ever cultivated in orbit. The product is expected to enhance the fruit’s natural resilience and nutrient density, including higher levels of vitamin C, potassium, flavonoids, polyphenols, and antioxidants, bringing orbital crops closer to the quality of wild-grown produce on Earth.
“With our Greenhouse platform, we are not only enabling fundamental research, but we are also demonstrating the practical cultivation of fresh food in space—including crops such as strawberries and fungi. These capabilities are essential as we prepare for long-duration missions and future habitats, while also generating valuable insights to improve agricultural practices here on Earth,” said Marc Dielissen, executive vice president for Redwire Corp.’s European operations.
The said contract marks the inaugural flight for Redwire Corp.’s trailblazing Greenhouse system—the world’s first commercial space greenhouse.
“The Redwire Greenhouse provides a simple, scalable commercial solution for customers seeking to advance crop science from benchtop laboratory facilities to true production in space. Along with supporting long-term NASA exploration plans, the Redwire Greenhouse will also provide unprecedented research opportunities for institutional and commercial customers with various plant science and industrial research goals,” Redwire Corp. said.
4. Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:IOVA)
Iovance Biotherapeutics climbed by 15.57 percent on Thursday to end at $4.38 apiece after securing the conditional approval of Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for the treatment of melanoma through its therapy, Amtagvi.
The approval marked Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc.’s (NASDAQ:IOVA) third marketing authorization for Amtagvi, after earlier securing the approval of the US and Canada.
The company posted an optimistic outlook about Amtagvi’s business prospects in Australia, with the country having the highest rate of melanoma globally, with an estimated 17,000 new cases diagnosed each year and more than 1,500 deaths annually.
“This approval … marks a significant step forward for Iovance in the country with the highest rate of melanoma globally,” Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc. President and CEO Frederick Vogt.
“We are in the process of authorizing our first Australian treatment center as we advance our expansion strategy for Amtagvi in additional markets with a high prevalence of advanced melanoma.”
TGA granted approval based on safety and efficacy results from the global, multicenter C-144-01 trial investigating Amtagvi in patients with advanced melanoma previously treated with anti-PD-1 therapy and targeted therapy, if applicable.
3. Abivax SA (NASDAQ:ABVX)
Abivax soared by 16.39 percent on Thursday to close at $104.93 apiece as investors continued to hunt for bargains following the previous days’ lows, dragged by concerns about its cancer therapy candidate.
Earlier in the week, Abivax SA (NASDAQ:ABVX) announced strong clinical trial results from the third phase study evaluating Obefazimod in patients with moderate to severe active ulcerative colitis.
While the drug achieved its primary endpoint of demonstrating clinically meaningful efficacy and a placebo-adjusted remission rate of about 40 percent, the results were overshadowed by concerns about other cancer cases taking higher doses.
″[The] cancer signal complicates matters,” said investment firm Jefferies in its market note.
“Even if unrelated noise, we think the overhang will be real, especially considering the absence of other value-inflecting data events over the next [year].”
Following the results, Jefferies downgraded Abivax SA to hold from buy, as well as its price target, by 43.75 percent to $90 from $160 previously.
Apart from Jefferies, Abivax SA also earned a 22-percent lower price target from Wolfe Research, to $136 from $176 previously, but maintained its outperform rating for its stock.
Wolfe said that the coverage was based on various factors, including background rates higher than normal, an older patient population, and the lack of a data safety monitoring board and nonclinical genotoxicity signals.
However, the listed firm is set to provide a safety and efficacy update later this month, which Wolfe said may reinforce optimism anew among investors on expectations that the biopharmaceutical firm would devise a communication strategy to address concerns.
2. Innio NV (NASDAQ:INIO)
Innio soared by 23.33 percent in its first day as a publicly-listed company, riding the strong investor optimism for energy stocks amid the continued growing demand.
In intra-day trading, Innio NV (NASDAQ:INIO) opened at $31, marking a jump of 14.8 percent from its initial public offering price of $27, climbed by as high as 27.6 percent to $34.45, before trimming gains to end the session at $33.30.
Innio NV said that the IPO consisted of 90 million secondary shares, sold for $27 apiece for a total of $2.43 billion, and will be fully received by the selling shareholder. This means that Innio NV will not receive any amount from the proceeds.
Meanwhile, the company also granted its underwriters the right to purchase up to an additional 13.5 million shares from the selling shareholder at the IPO price, for a total of $364.5 million.
Backed by Advent and ADIA, Innio NV is a global distributed energy solutions provider that commits to delivering reliable, flexible, transient, decentralized, modular, and efficient power through the design, manufacture, and service of high-performance power systems under its Jenbacher and Waukesha brands.
The company delivers power for applications including data centers, microgrids, grid stabilization, industrial energy, and gas compression.
1. Liftoff Mobile Inc. (NASDAQ:LFTO)
Shares in Liftoff Mobile took off by 23.70 percent in its first trading day as a listed company, closing at $28.45 apiece, on strong investor optimism for mobile app marketing technology players.
Liftoff Mobile Inc. (NASDAQ:LFTO)—a firm backed by Blackstone—successfully raised $437 million in its initial public offering following the successful sale of 19 million shares at $23 apiece.
Investment funds affiliated with General Atlantic, L.P., have been allocated approximately 1.3 million common shares.
It also granted its underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2.85 million common shares for overallotments at the IPO price, less underwriting discounts and commissions.
Liftoff Mobile Inc. said that proceeds from the offer will be used to repay $357.3 million of debt under its new term loan facility ending in 2032, while the balance will be used for general corporate purposes.
“The biggest priority is enhancing the company’s machine learning model and improving predictions for better ad recommendations so that we can price them more intelligently,” Liftoff Mobile Inc. CEO Jeremy Bondy said “That allows us to do more user acquisition and optimize marketing spend for our advertisers.”
Liftoff Mobile Inc. was set to list in February this year, initially targeting as much as $762 million, but later walked back following a selloff in software stocks over concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence.
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