Why Shares of Iovance Biotherapeutics Jumped Monday

Shares of Iovance Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ: IOVA) were up 11% Monday afternoon after the late-stage biotech company announced on Friday that it had filed a Biologics License Application (BLA) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its therapy Lifileucel. The drug is the company's lead pipeline candidate, and the BLA is seeking approval for the drug to treat patients with advanced unresectable or metastatic melanoma who have already had a PD-1/L1 therapy (a checkpoint inhibitor anticancer drug that blocks the activity of PD-1 and PDL1 immune checkpoint proteins present on the surface of cells). The company, which focuses on novel T cell-based cancer immunotherapies, is using the company's phase 2 trial of the drug that dosed post-anti-PD1 melanoma patients with Lifileucel.