Stock Alert: Monopar Therapeutics Surges On Novel Triage Test Plan For Severe COVID-19

(RTTNews) - Shares of Monopar Therapeutics Inc. (MNPR) are gaining more than 62 percent or $4.63 in Wednesday's morning trade at $12.02.

Wednesday, Monopar Therapeutics said its plans to develop a test to potentially triage COVID-19 patients into those likely versus unlikely to progress to severe respiratory failure. The test would use Monopar's proprietary monoclonal antibody, ATN-658, to detect soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) in COVID-19 patient plasma.

If successful, a suPAR test for COVID-19 patients could identify those at high risk for severe respiratory failure, enabling earlier therapeutic interventions or allowing for the staging of patients to an optimal treatment based on their disease characteristics.

Monopar said it has developed a prototype enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for measuring blood suPAR levels using ATN-658. The company is currently in talks with several parties to further develop and commercialize either an ELISA or other suPAR-based test using ATN-658.

Monopar Therapeutics has traded in a range of $4.94 to $48.00 in the past 52 weeks.