Immune Response Stock Closes Up Strongly Again
For reasons not immediately clear to biotechnology observers, stock in Immune Response Corp. jumped $5 to close at $47.50 in over-the-counter trading Friday, after gaining $3.25 in Thursday trading.
The stock spurt is the latest in a series of gains by Immune Response, whose proposed HIV vaccine, now in advanced stages of clinical trials, has drawn investor interest. The stock has increased from $30 a share in mid-September, and as low as $2.875 in January.
Observers could offer no concrete reasons, only theories to explain the stock’s latest spurt. The company wasn’t talking because its recent filing to sell 1 million additional shares of its stock places restrictions on what it can say publicly.
A national AIDS conference was held in Florida this week, at which the company’s proposed vaccine is being discussed, and one observer said that might have generated interest in the shares. Another stimulus may be a recent Food and Drug Administration ruling in favor of a Bristol-Myers Squibb drug, a ruling that some construed as favorable for Immune Response.
Another reason could be that Immune Response executives recently began a nationwide “road show” to hype interest among investors and securities analysts in the company’s upcoming stock offering.
A theory advanced by Jim McCamant, editor of Medical Technology Stock Letter of Berkeley, was that short sellers--investors who make money only if an investment goes down in value--are covering their investments en masse to cut their losses because Immune Response continues to rise in price.
