(Alliance News) - Faron Pharmaceuticals Oy on Friday said its loss narrowed in 2019 on reduced research and development expense.
Shares in Faron were up 3.7% at 394.00 pence in London in late morning trading.
The clinical stage biopharmaceutical firm, headquartered in Finland, reported a EUR13.3 million pretax loss for 2019, narrowed from EUR20.1 million the year before. Research and development expenses fell 38% to EUR10.2 million from EUR16.5 million.
General and administrative expenses were also lower, EUR3.0 million versus EUR3.8 million in 2018.
As at December 31, Faron's cash balances stood at EUR7.1 million, up from EUR4.1 million the year prior. Its net assets on that date were EUR1.6 million compared to EUR400,000 year-on-year.
Faron raised a total of EUR15.6 million via a a share issue in 2019, with most of this being used for the Matins trial of cancer drug Clevegen and development of organ failure treatment Traumakine.
Traumakine faced challenges in 2019 when it emerged that the use of corticosteroids alongside Traumakine might "block the desired therapeutic effect of Traumakine and may have a potentially deleterious impact on patient outcomes". A new study protocol has been proposed, excluding concomitant corticosteroids.
The first step of this new study will be Integrity, a pilot randomised and placebo controlled study to determined the sample size for second step known as Caliber. Futher Traumakine studies are expected to be funded via a third party.
At present, Faron is currently involved in a legal dispute against Rentschler Biopharma SE after Rentschler sent a letter claiming to terminate the manufacturing agreement. Faron believes Rentschler's statement has no merit and filed a request for arbitration to seek damages.
In order to fund this, Faron has entered a ligitation funding agreement with an undisclosed "third-party recovery services provider". In the event of a successful arbitration, the provider is to "receive a typical portion of any damages awarded".
Chief Executive Markku Jalkanen said: "Our priority in 2019 was to rapidly accelerate our immunotherapy candidate, Clevegen, through the clinic. With the continued progression of the phase I/II Matins trial, we are very encouraged by its results so far. Clevegen is clearly exhibiting exciting properties as a potential immunotherapy capable of down regulating a range of major inhibitory immune checkpoints across several cancers. With our two cohort expansions in colorectal and ovarian cancer, we will continue to rapidly progress the development of Clevegen in patients with limited effective treatment options.
"We are also pleased that, following feedback from the [US Food & Drug Administration], we have agreed the trial design for the continued clinical development of Traumakine, which we continue to believe holds great potential as a future treatment for [acute respiratory distress syndrome], regardless of the underlying condition."
By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com
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Faron Pharmaceuticals (FARN)