Peregrine Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:PPHM) shares were up 11.29% to $0.424 and down 0.94% in after-hours trading. Share prices have been trading in a 52-week range of $0.29 to $1.33. The company has a market cap of $105.51 million at 242.38 million shares outstanding.

Peregrine Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company that operates in two segments. One segment,  Peregrine, is engaged in the research and development of monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of cancer. The other segment, Avid,  is engaged in providing contract manufacturing services for third party customers on a fee-for-service basis while also supporting its internal drug development efforts.

The company’s lead immunotherapy candidate is Bavituximab, which is a monoclonal antibody that targets and binds to phosphatidylserine (PS), a immunosuppressive molecule that is usually located inside the membrane of healthy cells, but then flips and becomes exposed on the outside of cells in the tumor microenvironment, causing the tumor to evade immune detection.

In its latest press release, Peregrine Pharmaceuticals announced that top-line data from the Phase III SUNRISE trial of bavituximab in patients with previously treated locally advanced or metastatic non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer will be presented in the upcoming European Society for Medical Oncology 2016 Congress. This is scheduled to take place on October 10, 2016 and investors are lining up positive expectations for the event.

It is important to note that we are undertaking a broad biomarker analysis effort as part of the SUNRISE trial and this initial set of data is just the first of what we hope will be several findings that will help guide the bavituximab clinical program going forward. We look forward to presenting results from this ongoing analysis effort at the ESMO 2016 Congress, as well as other medical conferences as the additional data becomes available,” noted Peregrine Pharmaceuticals CEO Steven King.

For now, the company’s strategy on Bavituximab is focused on  small, early-stage proof-of-concept trials evaluating the drug in tandem with other cancer treatments.

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