Why Intrexon Is Soaring Today

What happened

After Intrexon(NYSE: XON),a company focused on synthetic biology, reported first-quarter earnings, its shares rose 18% as of 11:25 a.m. EDT on Thursday.

So what

Here's a review of the headline numbers from the quarter:

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• Revenue grew 24% to $53.7 million. That figure easily exceeded the $48.8 million in revenue that market watchers were looking for.
• Net loss was $31.4 million,or $0.26 per share. That was a bit worse than the $0.23 loss that Wall Street had expected.
• Cash balance at the end of the quarter was $205.2 million.

Financial numbers aside, Intrexon also had a slew of other recent developments to share with investors:

• Intrexon and Darling Ingredientsannounced that their EnviroFlight joint venture will build a newcommercial-scale production facility of insect-based feed ingredients for animal feed.
• The company's reported that its Friendly Aedes mosquitoes achieved greater than 80% suppression of wildAedes aegyptiin Brazil in the second year of the project.
• Intrexon's collaborating partner,Ziopharm Oncology(NASDAQ: ZIOP), reported a successful end-of-phase 2 meeting with the Food and Drug Administration for Ad-RTS-hIL-12 andveledimex in treating recurrent glioblastoma. A pivotal phase 3 trial is currently in the works.
• Ziopharm also announced improved production times in its ongoing phase 1 trial of its second-generationSleeping BeautyCD19 + CAR-T cells. In addition, a patient with multiple-relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia achieved a complete response and another patient with non-Hodgkin lymphoma was treated with T-cells manufactured by the company in just two weeks.
• Intrexon and Ziopharm also had an IND application accepted by the FDA for a phase 1 study of the company's CD33-specific CAR+T therapy in refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Enrollment is expected to begin next quarter.
• The company announced the formation of a new subsidiary called Precigen that is designed to "accelerate strategic evaluation of structural alternatives for consolidation of Intrexon's health-related assets to enhance shareholder value and maximize the potential of the Company's programs in health."
• Intrexon and partner Fibrocell Scienceannounced fast-track designation from the FDA for FCX-007 for thetreatment of recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa.
• Intrexon agreed to acquireGenVec.
• Intrexon completed the listing of its AquaBountyTechnologiessubsidiary on the Nasdaq.

Traders bid up Intrexon's stock in response to all of this positive news.

Image source: Getty Images.

Now what

Intrexon continues to offer investors multibagger potential if any of its high-risk projects pay off. However, keeping tabs on all of those projects can be quite difficult, which makes this a stock that requires a tremendous amount of homework. For that reason, this stock should probably only be owned by seasoned investors who are comfortable with volatility.

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Brian Feroldi has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Darling Ingredients. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.