RICHMOND, Calif., May 4, 2026, 12:03 PDT
- Sangamo shares jumped roughly 33% by midday Monday, just ahead of Nasdaq’s planned trading suspension set for the stock on Tuesday.
- SGMO is set to shift over to the OTCQB Venture Market on May 5, following a Nasdaq delisting notice issued because the stock failed to meet the exchange’s $1 minimum bid requirement, the company said.
- Sangamo’s cash situation, its discussions with potential partners, and the status of the Fabry disease gene-therapy submission all come back under the spotlight with this move.
Sangamo Therapeutics jumped in active Monday trading, with shares up about a third at $0.18 after hitting $0.2156 earlier. The move comes just ahead of the genomic-medicine company’s expected exit from the Nasdaq Capital Market. Sangamo is set to start trading on the OTCQB Venture Market on Tuesday.
This shift is drawing attention, with May 5 marking Sangamo’s first session trading on the OTCQB. Investors are watching for possible changes in liquidity, shareholder mix, and restrictions for funds barred from holding OTC names. The company has maintained that the move shouldn’t have a material impact on business or day-to-day operations.
Nasdaq has notified Sangamo that it still doesn’t meet the exchange’s minimum bid price rule. According to a filing, the stock fell under $1 for 30 consecutive trading days, triggering the first warning in April 2025. After an extra compliance window, Sangamo received a delisting notice on April 28, 2026.
The company says it will take its case to a Nasdaq hearings panel. That move could pause the official delisting proceedings, though it won’t lift the trading suspension, according to Sangamo’s filing.
Sangamo landed OTCQB approval and plans to stick with the SGMO ticker on that platform. OTC Markets Group operates OTCQB, which caters to smaller and early-stage firms. Unlike Nasdaq, though, it doesn’t count as a full exchange listing.
Sangamo shares clawed back some ground Monday after tumbling on news of the delisting. Data from the company’s investor site show the stock ended April 27 at $0.21, slipped to $0.20 on April 28, then dropped to $0.13 on April 29 before ticking up to $0.14 on May 1. Trading picked up sharply once the OTCQB switch was announced.
Sangamo is still looking for fresh capital and weighing options for its assets. The company noted it’s in talks over several possible business development deals, but says it will only share specifics if any of those talks lead to a binding agreement.
The story splits in two directions: one, the listing issue; the other, Sangamo’s drug pipeline. Leading that pipeline is isaralgagene civaparvovec—ST-920—an experimental one-time gene therapy for Fabry disease, which hits the kidney, heart, nerves, and more.
Sangamo pushed ahead with a rolling Biologics License Application for ST-920 to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration back in March. This approach allows the company to deliver parts of its BLA as they’re ready, rather than holding the entire packet until completion.
Fabry disease isn’t a solo stage—Sanofi has Fabrazyme on the market, its enzyme-replacement therapy for patients with a confirmed diagnosis. Then there’s Amicus Therapeutics’ Galafold, which is cleared for specific adults who have Fabry disease along with amenable GLA gene variants.
Sangamo is pushing to spotlight some of its foundational technology as well. The company announced last week that three of its abstracts had been accepted by the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy for the group’s annual meeting, set for May 11-15. The research includes neurology, zinc finger epigenetic regulation, and modular integrase technology. “Advances in our neurology pipeline” and the “strength of our genome engineering platform” will be front and center, according to Chief Executive Sandy Macrae. Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc.
Gene therapy’s wider landscape is still uncertain. Pfizer dropped its hemophilia A gene therapy partnership with Sangamo late in 2024, pointing to trial results, feedback from experts, and what it called tepid patient demand for an additional gene therapy targeting moderate to severe hemophilia A.
The core problem remains: even with an OTCQB quote and a Nasdaq appeal in play, Sangamo’s big financing gap is unresolved. Back in March, the company flagged some major red flags—capital shortages that could derail approval or commercialization of its candidates, no guarantee of landing a partner to bring ST-920 to market, and doubts about whether the clinical benefits from trials would actually last.
SGMO is in the hands of event-driven traders at this point. Fabry remains in play, with filings, scientific updates, and a shot at deals all waiting in the wings. But the immediate focus is more straightforward: Nasdaq trading halts at the open on May 5.
