Argos Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ARGS) shares were up 18.12% to $6.91 in Monday’s New York session and an additional 2.17% in after-hours trading to $7.06.
Argos Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ARGS) shares hit a high of $7.64 on Monday before sliding lower, offering an opportunity to catch a short-term pullback. Prior to the early Monday rally, share prices had been trading below the $6.00 ceiling. Approximately 771,354 shares traded hands, up 43.34% from its average daily volume, reflecting significant interest in the stock.
Argos Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ARGS) is is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of personalized immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. It focuses on its main platform Arcelis while developing other product candidates such as the AGS-003 for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma and other cancers.
From a longer-term perspective, the stock has traded in a 52-week range of $1.61 to $13.97, which means that it’s in the upper half of its range and might have enough buying pressure to sustain further gains. Earlier in the year, however, the company revealed that it will be laying off 13% of its workforce to stay within budget. This means that 18 employees will lose jobs and bring the company down to 117 employees.
These workforce reductions were completed in April and Argos Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ARGS) expects around $400,000 in costs associated with the terminations. Still, the reductions in the workforce could decrease the company’s operating costs by $2.3 million each year.
“It’s never an easy decision to have to let people go,” mentioned Argos Therapeutics CEO Jeff Abbey. We needed to become a bit more efficient and cost effective.” However, this shake-up isn’t expected to delay the company’s expected timeline for its Phase 3 ADAPT trial. Aside from that, company COO Fred Miesowicz resigned from his post in April 22 and will act as a consultant to the company until 2017.
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