ImmunityBio: 'Kick & Kill' HIV Cure Strategy To Reduce HIV Viral Load With Anktiva Therapy; Stock Up

(RTTNews) - ImmunityBio Inc. (IBRX) announced promising phase 1 study results that demonstrated the activation of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and natural killer cells in people living with HIV by the company's IL-15 superagonist Anktiva (N-803). The study results were published in Nature Medicine.

IBRX closed Monday regular trading at $5.82 up $0.65 or 12.57%. In the after-hours, the stock further gained $0.38 or 6.53%.

Anktiva stimulates latent HIV replication (the "kick") in CD4 memory cells allowing the previously hidden infected cells to be revealed and eliminated (the "kill") by CD8 and NK cells.

The mechanism is key for killing cells that harbor latent virus, thereby reducing viral reservoirs in antiretroviral (ART)-suppressed HIV patients and ultimately ridding the body of the virus and the threat of re-activation. The positive clinical findings support ImmunityBio's "Kick-and-Kill" strategy to cure HIV.

ImmunityBio noted that, in both pre-clinical and clinical research, the company's IL-15 superagonist Anktiva has exhibited three activities that could potentially help the immune system eliminate HIV reservoirs and control virus rebound.

Anktiva has been shown to reverse HIV latency—whereby genetic code for the virus persists, but virus is not made, allowing the infected cells to evade detection and elimination by the immune system—by stimulating HIV replication within long-lived immune cells such as memory CD4 cells, allowing the infected cells to be recognized and cleared.

Anktiva activates natural killer cells and CD8+ T cells, two elements of the immune system that specialize in killing virus-infected cells.

Anktiva enables natural killer cells and CD8+ T cells to move to lymphoid tissues where they will encounter and have an increased likelihood of eliminating HIV-infected cells.