Healthcare stocks connected to companies fighting cancer are making great advances. One of the latest such gainers is Apexigen (NASDAQ:APGN), who, of all things, found a way to make “cold” tumors “hot.” This may sound bizarre, but it’s driving interest, and Apexigen is up substantially in Thursday’s trading.
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Apexigen took its show on the road to the ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium 2023 event. There, it offered up new Phase 2 study data around its drug sotigalimab. Essentially, for patients with esophageal or gastro-esophageal junction cancer, sotigalimab turned tumors from going largely unnoticed by patients’ immune systems—immunologically “cold”—to being quite noticeable and thereby attacked. How does the drug do this? It makes changes in the tumor microenvironment. Thus, it fights cancer, noted a report from Apexigen’s chief medical officer Frank Hsu, M.D.
Meanwhile, a separate study offered another use for sotigalimab in the field of rectal cancer. Sotigalimab, when used with short-course radiation therapy, prompted an increased response from natural immune system processes like B cells, T cells, and dendritic cells. The response was actually better than radiation alone.
Apexigen may have gained substantially today, but its five-day trading pattern is extremely volatile. A series of peaks and valleys accompany the last five days. The biggest gains today were short-lived at best.
