News Press Releases

Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy Index Conducts Semi-Annual Rebalance

SRNE, CRIS | December 21, 2016

Two Biotechnology Companies Added to the Index

Loncar Investments, LLC today announced the result of the semi-annual rebalance and reconstitution of the Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy Index, a group of the top 30 companies developing cancer immunotherapy treatments and discovering new ways to use the body’s immune system to fight cancer.

As the cancer immunotherapy space continues to evolve, research-centric biotechnology companies that specialize in immunotherapy are more numerous, innovative, and have a larger role to play in the field’s growth. Therefore, the committee that governs the index has chosen to increase this group’s weighting. The index will now combine 25 small-to mid-cap biotechnology companies (up from 23) and five large cap companies (down from seven).

The Committee has added Curis (Nasdaq: CRIS) and Sorrento Therapeutics (Nasdaq: SRNE) to the index.

These additions replace Celgene (Nasdaq: CELG) and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE).

“It has been inspiring to watch the first generation of immunotherapies reach the market and make a difference for a growing number of patients,” said Brad Loncar, Chairman of the index committee. “Innovative biotechnology companies hold the key to building on that success via new immunotherapy approaches and we are happy to add two such companies to the index today.”

Effective this week, all index holdings have been rebalanced to hold equal weight. The index is rebalanced and reconstituted semi-annually. The next rebalance will occur on June 20, 2017.

Loncar Investments is an official partner of the Cancer Research Institute, the world’s only nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to harnessing the immune system’s power to conquer all cancers. To learn about how to give to CRI, please visit here.

Why immunotherapy: Cancer immunotherapy has become an important sector in the biotechnology space and is changing the way many cancers are treated. While traditional medicines like chemotherapies often give cancer a broad punch, the benefit of using immunotherapy is derived from the immune system's dynamic nature and the way it can more precisely be tailored to fight a patient's disease. Some immunotherapies have already exhibited uncommon results in clinical trials including partial and complete responses in late stage cancer patients.

About the index: The Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy Index is an equal-weighted index of 30 top immunotherapy companies rebalanced and reconstituted on a semi-annual basis. Price and return data are independently calculated on a daily basis by Indxx, LLC. This is a sector index similar to Technology sector indices (Internet, Cyber Security, Cloud Computing, etc.). Sector indices allow investors to track interest areas more precisely than broad indices. Additional information can be found at the index’s dedicated website, www.LoncarIndex.com.

Index provider: Loncar Investments, LLC is committed to making the biotechnology space more approachable to a wider range of investors. The company is principally owned by biotech investor and analyst Brad Loncar. Mr. Loncar manages a biotech-focused family portfolio from his Lenexa, Kan. office. He can be followed on Twitter at @bradloncar and his commentary is available at www.loncarblog.com.