May 13, 2010
By CHRIS LAMBIE Business Editor
Thu. May 13 - 4:53 AM
A Halifax biotech company working to develop a human cancer vaccine earned a little more and lost a little more in the first quarter.
Immunovaccine Inc.’s revenues in the first three months of this year were $58,000, compared with no revenue generated during the same period last year.
The company reported a consolidated net loss of $1.498 million in the first quarter of this year, compared with a loss of $1.007 million in the first quarter of 2009.
"We’ve started our Phase 1 clinical trial in humans and that’s really the reason why you see the increase in expenses," chief financial officer Gary Dodge said Wednesday.
The trials have meant an additional $264,000 in expenses for Immunovaccine, Dodge said.
Stock-based compensation for the board of directors, managers and consultants of $237,960 resulted in an additional $227,000 expense increase.
Immunovaccine ended the first quarter with cash and equivalents of $6.9 million.
"We have funded ourselves with adequate working capital to get through our Phase 1 clinical (trial), which should be completed in (the second quarter of) next year, and also provide working capital until that time as well," Dodge said.
"So, as our technology advances, or if there were additional deals that may be identified, or as we have positive safety results in our Phase 1 (trial), we would then look at whether or not we would need to go out for additional rounds of funding at that time."
The second phase of testing will cost $20 million to $25 million, he said.
"A Phase 3 will actually be hundreds of millions of dollars. So our anticipation is that we would never take a product to Phase 3 ourselves. Once we get to a successful Phase 2, then we would look to partner out at that stage."
Immunovaccine’s research and development expenses totalled $767,000 in the first quarter, an 11 per cent increase over the same period last year.
General and administrative expenses in the first three months of this year were $388,000, compared with $286,000 in the first quarter of 2009. Immunovaccine blamed the hike on costs associated with being a public company, as well as the addition of a full-time CFO starting last September.
Business development and marketing activities totalled $183,000, an increase of $90,000 compared with the first quarter of last year.
"This increase relates to the hiring of investor relations and public relations firms to help raise (our) corporate profile, as well as the addition of a senior (business development) consultant to expand the company’s vaccine pipeline," said a company news release.
Immunovaccine went public in a reverse takeover last fall. It was trading at about $1.12 Wednesday.
"We went public at 70 cents and we have never traded below that value since," Dodge said.
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