Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy Index Conducts Semi-Annual Rebalance

Two New Immunotherapy 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.

The index committee has added BeiGene (Nasdaq: BGNE) and Compugen (Nasdaq: CGEN) to the index.

These additions replace Celyad (Nasdaq: CYAD) and Immune Design (Nasdaq: IMDZ).

“Transformative drug development is happening all over the world,” said Brad Loncar, Chairman of the index committee. “We are pleased to welcome our first components to the index from China and Israel and look forward to following their contributions to the field of cancer immunotherapy.”

The index committee has further decided to institute a minimum equity liquidity threshold of 50,000 shares or $500,000 in average daily trading volume for any index component going forward.

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 December 20, 2016.

Loncar Investments is a proud 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 info can be found at the index’s dedicated website, www.LoncarIndex.com.

Index provider: Loncar Investments LLC was founded by independent biotech investor and analyst Brad Loncar. Mr. Loncar regularly provides his distinctive insight and analysis on this market segment to the investment community via a variety of publishing platforms. Through Loncar Investments LLC, Mr. Loncar has incorporated his extensive research into biotech companies and technologies into developing an index focused on precise investment opportunities. He previously worked in the financial services industry at Franklin Templeton Investments, and was appointed to serve in a Senior Adviser role at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Mr. Loncar can be followed on Twitter at @bradloncar.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160622005067/en/

Leah Katsanis for ISE ETF [e-mail]