BOSTON (AP) _ Ziopharm Oncology Inc. (ZIOP) on Thursday reported a loss of $18.6 million in its second quarter.

The Boston-based company said it had a loss of 9 cents per share.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for a loss of 10 cents per share.

In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, the company's shares hit $3.20. A year ago, they were trading at $6.17.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on ZIOP at https://www.zacks.com/ap/ZIOP

Automated Insights, source Associated Press News