3 Oncology-Focused Pharmaceutical Stocks on a Tear

Ahead of the long weekend, investors have taken interest in three pharmaceutical stocks, contributing to some positive share price movements. Here’s a look at three oncology-focused pharmaceutical stocks with more than 10 percent increases in their intraday trading. 

Celator Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:CPXX)

Wednesday was a good day for Celator Pharmaceuticals , am oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company working on developing new and more effective therapies to treat cancer. Celator announced the pricing of an underwritten public offering of $38 million. The common shares are being offered at a price of $9.50 per share. And the offer is expected to close on March 29.
Earlier in week, Celator released its quarterly earnings data. While the numbers showed an earnings per share of $0.13, thereby missing the Thomson Reuters estimate of $0.12, the news still managed to push the company’s share price higher earlier in the week. The company has also been benefitting from a re-issued by rating on its share by investment firm Roth Capital.
As a result of Wednesday’s news, Celator was up 25 percent, trading near it’s 52-week high.

Cerulean Pharma (NASDAQ:CERU)

Also focused on improving cancer treatments, Cerulean Pharma has a platform-generated nanoparticle-drug conjugate NDC clinical candidate, CRLX101. CRL101 is a NDC that is designed to concentrate in tumors and slowly release its anti-cancer payload, camptothecin, inside tumor cells.
Cerulean announced on Wednesday that it had published clinical data for CRLX101. Mark Davis, Professor of Chemical Engineering at California Institute of Technology commented that “CRLX101 delivers a powerful anti-cancer drug to the tumor, sparing adjacent healthy tissue, results that directly translate observations from the lab to the clinic.”
Following the news, Cerulean Pharma’s shares are up nearly 12 percent.

Galena Biopharma (NASDAQ:GALE)

Rounding off the mid-week pharmaceutical stocks making gains is Galena Biopharma. Galena is focused on development and commercialization of targeted oncology therapeutics that address major unmet medical needs. The company’s main focus has been on the growing population of cancer survivors by harnessing the power of the immune system in order to prevent a relapse.
The company’s novel cancer immunotherapy programs include NeuVax, which is in a pivotal phase 3 clinical trial with several concurrent phase 2 trials ongoing both as a single agent and in combination with other therapies. While the company has no recent news, it is slated to release its earnings report for the first quarter in early May.
At end of day, Galena Biopharma was up 10 percent.