Barclays, Deutsche Bank Reveal Stakes In Retail-Favorite Cancer Stocks SLS, IBRX And IOVA — Geode Adds More

• Geode added 1.2 million shares across the trio, with ImmunityBio seeing its largest increase.
• LPL increased Sellas and ImmunityBio holdings while trimming Iovance. Russell expanded its Iovance position nearly 166%.
• Stocktwits sentiment was ‘bullish’ for SLS and IOVA and ‘bearish’ for IBRX, while all three attracted more watchers over the past year.

Barclays and Deutsche Bank disclosed holdings in Sellas Life Sciences (SLS), ImmunityBio (IBRX) and Iovance Biotherapeutics (IOVA), while Geode Capital Management added a combined 1.2 million shares across the three cancer-focused biotechs.

Barclays And Deutsche Bank Reveal Stakes

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Barclays held its largest share position among the three in Iovance, owning about 0.11% of the company. Deutsche Bank held the most shares in ImmunityBio, but its biggest ownership stake was in Sellas at 0.1%, according to data tracked by Fiscal AI. 

Holdings disclosed on Friday showed that Deutsche Bank owned more than twice as many Sellas and ImmunityBio shares as Barclays as of Sept. 30, while Barclays held more Iovance shares. 

Geode Adds More Across All 3 Stocks

Geode increased its holdings in all three, led by ImmunityBio. It added 758,758 shares, boosting that position 7.7% to 10.61 million, its largest increase by both share count and percentage.

It also added 287,644 Sellas shares, raising its holding 5.89% to 5.2 million, and 127,416 Iovance shares, lifting the position 1.2% to 10.45 million. Geode held 26.2 million shares across the three companies. Its largest ownership stake was in Sellas at 2.6%, followed by Iovance at 2.3% and ImmunityBio at 1%.

Other Investors Pick Different Favorites

Other investors include LPL Financial, Russell Investments, and Clearwater Capital Advisors 

LPL added to Sellas and ImmunityBio, while trimming Iovance. It increased its Sellas holding 78%, adding 121,412 shares, and its ImmunityBio position 15%, adding 157,652 shares. Its Iovance holding fell 10%, down 67,718 shares.

Russell’s largest percentage increase was in Iovance, where it added 319,979 shares to expand its position 165.75%. It also added 75,731 ImmunityBio shares, lifting that holding 65.33%, while trimming Sellas by just 87 shares. Meanwhile, Clearwater held 717,524 ImmunityBio shares and 21,711 Iovance shares.

Catalysts Behind The Cancer Stocks

Sellas expects results this quarter from its Phase 3 Regal trial of cancer immunotherapy Galinpepimut-S. The study reached the required 80th death last month, triggering its final analysis.

Sellas will also present Phase 2 SLS009 combination data at December’s American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting. At the selected dose, response rates reached 54% in monocytic acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and 57% in patients with TP53 mutations after Venetoclax treatment failed. 

ImmunityBio is focused on reaching more patients. The company said last week that the first patients in Germany and Austria had received Anktiva plus bladder-cancer immunotherapy BCG after their disease failed to respond to BCG alone. The rollout follows conditional European authorization in February, with Accord Healthcare supporting commercialization and Uniphar providing supply-chain services. 

Iovance, meanwhile, is turning growing demand into record revenue. Third-quarter sales hit $122 million, up about 80% from a year earlier, keeping the company on track for its 2026 revenue forecast of $410 million to $420 million.

Its next growth opportunity includes lung cancer. A Lifileucel study reported a 24.6% response rate in 69 patients, including two unconfirmed responses, and 59.1% in a subgroup selected using biological markers. Iovance plans a supplemental FDA application for the indication in 2027.

How Do Retail Traders Feel About SLS, IBRX And IOVA?

On Stocktwits, SLS and IOVA drew ‘bullish’ sentiment, with ‘normal’ message volume for SLS and ‘high’ activity for IOVA. IBRX sentiment was ‘bearish’ amid ‘low’ message volume. All three have attracted more watchers over the past year. IBRX led with a 63% increase in its watcher base, followed by SLS at 34% and IOVA at 24%.

One user said of Sellas, “I’m holding, buying just a little, not selling.” Another user said of ImmunityBio, “We're overdue for a good time!”

A separate user said of Iovance, “Fundamentals typically do win out in the end, but time is part of that equation.” The user favored holding for the long term and speculated that a potential buyer would need to pay $20 billion to $40 billion.

IBRX leads the trio with a 336% year-to-date gain, followed by IOVA at 195% and SLS at 123%. All three have far outpaced sector benchmarks: the iShares Biotechnology ETF (IBB), up 27%, the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI), up 25%, and the Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLV), up 21%.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.

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