Hot Stock Alert for IMUC – Shares Skyrocket as DNDN Boosts Biotechs

Shares of ImmunoCellular Therapeutics Ltd. (OTC: $IMUC) soared more than 50% in today’s trading. The OTC stock reached a high of $2.44, and at last check was up by 55.17% to $2.25, with volume up from daily average of 95,000 to 604,000. Woodland Hills, California-based ImmunoCellular Therapeutics is a development stage company that seeks to develop and commercialize therapeutics to fight cancer using the immune system.

On April 21, the company announced that it has entered into a sponsored research agreement and an option agreement with the University of Pennsylvania. Under the agreement, the university will support process development and manufacturing in a planned phase II clinical trial of ICT-107, the company’s dendritic-cell based cancer vaccine product candidate for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme, which is an aggressive form of brain cancer. However, the announcement came on April 21, so it does not really justify today’s jump in the penny stock.

With a little more stock research, we found one possible reason for the spike could be yesterday’s news regarding Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN), a biotechnology company whose product portfolio includes active cellular immunotherapy and small molecule product candidates to treat a range of cancers. Dendreon yesterday received FDA approval for its Provenge prostate cancer treatment.

We think that yesterday’s news about Provenge may be the reason behind the spike in ImmunoCelluar’s stock today. Is it justified? Though it’s difficult to say for sure, probably.  Investors may have reacted to yesterday’s news about Provenge and bullishly jumped on other companies involved in the development of therapeutics to treat cancer, and ImmunoCellular could be caught in the wake.

ImmunoCellular’s phase I trial for its cancer vaccine product candidate was promising, as was its agreement with University of Pennsylvania. However, the company has a long way to go before it gets close to receiving an approval from the FDA. The OTC stock currently trades above its 50-day and 200-day moving averages. It has been volatile in the past year, with a 52-week range of $0.22-$2.44. All we can do is sit back and see how far today’s rally goes.