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Iovance Biotherapeutics

shares fell early Tuesday after the company released data on a trial of its cancer therapy LN-145 that analysts said showed positive results for the therapy, and for the platform.

The data comes from a 28-patient cohort of an ongoing study of the drug in patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer who had not been helped by other therapies. The company reported an overall response rate of 21.4% in the cohort, and a disease control rate of 64.3%.

LN-145 is a so-called tumor infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, which enlists the patient’s own immune cells to fight their cancer.

In a note out early Tuesday, Jefferies analyst Michael Yee wrote that the data “looks good” and demonstrates the potential of the tumor infiltrating lymphocyte platform. In a separate note, Cowen analyst Boris Peaker wrote that the data “demonstrate clear activity of [tumor infiltrating lymphocytes]” in this population.

Investors, however, were unimpressed, and the stock fell 6.8% Tuesday morning.

Iovance (ticker: IOVA) has had a rocky spring and early summer. In late May, the stock fell 39.5% in a single day after the company reported negative news from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the surprise departure of its CEO.

The company’s general counsel,
Frederick Vogt,
is currently serving as its interim CEO.

Shares of Iovance are down 44.5% so far this year. Of the 14 analysts who track the stock polled by FactSet, 11 rate it a Buy or Overweight, while three rate it a Hold.

In a statement on Tuesday, the company’s chief medical officer, Dr. Friedrich Graf Finckenstein, said that the initial data on LN-145 was “very promising.” Iovance said it would release more data on the cohort of patients at a medical meeting in the second half of the year.

“We are excited to share our initial results for LN-145 in non-small cell lung cancer, a new potential indication for Iovance TIL cell therapy, which show positive outcomes in patients with high unmet medical need,” Dr. Graf Finckenstein said in a statement.

In a note Tuesday, Mizuho analyst Mara Goldstein wrote that the overall response rate of 21.4% was good compared with other options for the patient population in the study, who had already failed a number of prior therapies. “Responses could trend upwards with longer follow-up as unconfirmed responses were denoted as stable disease (SD) at this early juncture,” Goldstein wrote.

Write to josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com

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