Scorching Hot Biotech Stocks Tape: Kite Pharma, Inc. (KITE), Celgene Corporation (CELG)

Kite Pharma, Inc. (KITE) ended last trading session with a change of 2.31 percent. It trades at an average volume of 1.3M shares versus 2.87M shares recorded at the end of last trading session. The share price of $85.92 is at a distance of 115.77 percent from its 52-week low and down 1.68 percent versus its peak. The company has a market cap of $4.59B and currently has 53.4M shares outstanding. The share price is currently 33.75 percent versus its SMA20, 55.26 percent versus its SMA50, and 61.68 percent versus its SMA200. The stock has a weekly performance of 16.27 percent and is 91.61 percent year-to-date as of the recent close.

On March 6, 2017 Kite Pharma, Inc., (KITE) announced that Richard L. Wang, Ph.D. will be appointed Chief Executive Officer of Fosun Kite Biotechnology Co., Ltd, the company’s 50/50 owned joint venture in China with Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd. (600196.SH,02196.HK).The companies announced the formation of the joint venture in early 2017 to develop, manufacture and commercialize autologous T-cell therapies to treat cancer in China, including Kite’s lead cell therapy product candidate, axicabtagene ciloleucel. Final registration of the joint venture is ongoing.

Celgene Corporation (CELG) recently recorded 0.35 percent change and currently at $124.43 is 31.83 percent away from its 52-week low and down -2.02 percent versus its peak. It has a past 5-day performance of 0.74 percent and trades at an average volume of 4.13M shares. The stock has a 1-month performance of 6.59 percent and is 7.5 percent year-to-date as of the recent close. There were about 785.06M shares outstanding which made its market cap $97.69B. The share price is currently 2.9 percent versus its SMA20, 5.47 percent versus its SMA50, and 12.35 percent versus its SMA200.

On March 5, 2017 Celgene Corporation (CELG) announced that results from its phase 4 UNVEIL trial evaluating OTEZLA® (apremilast), the Company’s oral, selective inhibitor of phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4), in patients with moderate plaque psoriasis with a body surface area (BSA) of 5-10 percent, were presented at the American Academy of Dermatology’s Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.

The UNVEIL study evaluated the clinical efficacy and safety of oral OTEZLA 30 mg twice daily compared with placebo at week 16 in 221 patients with moderate plaque psoriasis [defined as a BSA involvement of 5-10 percent and a static Physician’s Global Assessment (sPGA) of 3] who were naïve to systemic and biologic therapy. At baseline, more than 80 percent of patients enrolled in the trial had previously received topical therapy. The primary endpoint was the mean percentage change from baseline in the product of PGA and BSA (PGA×BSA) at week 16. The PGAxBSA composite tool is a simple assessment that has been developed as a measure of clinically meaningful responses of psoriasis patients in clinical trials.