Markets
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Luke Kawa

Flurry of positive announcements make ImmunityBio the next short squeeze target for retail traders

Heavily shorted ImmnuityBio is continuing its stellar run, up big in premarket trading after management delivered its fourth and fifth doses of positive news for the week.

In a pair of press releases, the biotech company said that:

  • A trial aiming to advance the utilization of its bladder cancer drug (ANKTIVA) is over 85% complete, with interim analysis having been positive.

  • A study of one of its treatments delivered in concert with another drug helped patients stay clear of Waldenstrom Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma for up to 15 months.

At their premarket peak on Friday, shares had more than doubled on the week.

The stock jumped 30% on Thursday after management said that ANKTIVA volume sales rose 750% in 2025. That came on the heels of a 7% rise on Wednesday after Saudi Arabia approved this drug as part of a treatment for bladder cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. And that followed a release from the company on Tuesday about how ANKTIVA “demonstrated statistically significant immune restoration across two clinical trials in 151 patients with non-small cell lung cancer,” driving shares up nearly 9%.

About 36.5% of the company’s shares were sold short as of the start of this year, and retail traders are clearly of the view that those betting against the company will be forced to capitulate amid this litany of positive releases. As of 7:30 a.m. ET, two of the top three posts on the r/ShortSqueeze subreddit center on the biotech firm, with one of these a cross-post from r/WallStreetBets of a more than $90,000 position initiated after the close on Thursday.

This may be another instance in which the term “short squeeze” looks like a bit of a misnomer: as of year-end 2025, about 120.6 million shares of IBRX were sold short, per exchange data. Cumulative volumes over the past three full sessions have been above 150 million. So going forward, if there are shorts left to be squeezed, it’s because this three-day spike (going on four days!) had much more to do with a buyer’s binge thanks to this string of encouraging news.

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