Will The Rally In Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Hold?

A stock that made headlines on a few different occasions in 2014 is back at it in 2015. Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation TKMR is over $20.00 for the first time since late October.

In Monday's session, it is trading higher by more than 50 percent.

Has This Happened Before?

The company, which is best known for its experimental Ebola vaccines, had similar moves in March and October of last year. Both moves were predicated on the possibility of its vaccine being approved and coming to market.

The initial surge in March took the issue to its all-time high at $31.48, when the Ebola virus started to claims lives in Africa. The euphoria from that news faded and the issue traded down to $8.86 in July.

The Next Move

From there, Tekmira rallied to nearly $13.00 by the end of month.

Related Link: Why Tekmira Is Up 50%

Once the Ebola virus became more prevalent in the news, it moved higher in August through October, until it rallied to $29.93 at the pinnacle of the Ebola virus scare. It should be noted that the issue reached the $34.00 level in premarket trading on October 3.

As fears of a widespread outbreak subsided, though, the stock bottomed out on December 9 at $12.54.

The OnCore Biopharma Move

Over the weekend, the company announced a merger agreement with OnCore Biopharma.

The acquisition is supposed to assist the company in capitalizing on the HBV global market opportunity; it is expected to give Tekmira the opportunity to utilize eight unique drug candidates to develop a curative regimen for HBV.

The merger is also expected to allow the company to move forward with valuable oncology research, along with other anti-viral programs.

So far, the Street is cheering the move of the merger. As opposed to a takeover scenario, traders and investors appear to anticipate immediate synergies between the two companies.

Shares of Tekmira last moved up 54.4 percent to $24.29.