Stock Alert: Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc. (IOVA) Shares Hit 52-Week High

(RTTNews) - Shares of Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc. (IOVA) touched a 52-week high of $34.46 on Feb. 25, and closed Tuesday's trading session at $31.46, up $6.77 or 27.42%. The stock has been trading between $9.21 and $34.46 in the past one year. Trading volume surged to 11.3 million versus an average volume of 1.33 million shares.

Bloomberg reported that Iovance is exploring a sale and has held preliminary talks with potential buyers, citing people familiar with the matter. The report also cautioned that the cell therapy company could opt to remain independent.

Meanwhile, the company, on Feb. 25, reported a Q4 net loss $63.6 million, or $0.50 per share, wider than the prior year's loss of $32.6 million, or $0.27 per share.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a loss of $0.41 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimate typically exclude certain special items.

"During 2019 we made tremendous progress in advancing Iovance TIL and PBL products," said Maria Fardis, Iovance President and Chief Executive Officer. "We conducted two planned pivotal programs for lifileucel in melanoma and LN-145 in cervical, initiated patient dosing in earlier lines of therapy and received clearance from FDA on a new IND to proceed to dose patients with our PBL product, IOV-2001..."