Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals Shares Q1 2019 Results

Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:SBPH) announced its financial results for Q1 2019 and issued a corporate update to shareholders.

As quoted in the press release:

“In the first few months of 2019, we continued to make significant progress with our inarigivir clinical program, the development of our intravenously-administered Stimulator of Interferon Genes (STING) agonist SB 11285, and the lead novel antisense compound for HBV emerging from our R&D platform,” said Martin Driscoll, president and chief executive officer of Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals. “We completed the ACHIEVE trial in the first quarter of 2019 with positive findings and important insights from this trial presented recently at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL). This trial demonstrated that orally-administered inarigivir can achieve HBsAg reduction in chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) patients comparable to interferon but with a significantly better tolerability profile than interferon. The HBsAg responder rate of 26 [percent] in the ACHIEVE trial is the best reported response rate for a novel oral agent in HBV treatment to date and is superior to that reported in studies of interferon monotherapy, indicating the functional cure potential for inarigivir. Importantly, the ACHIEVE trial has identified for us the predictors of response to inarigivir, including HBV genotype, baseline HBsAg and IP-10 levels for both HBeAg positive and negative patients, providing us with important guidance for the selection and stratification of the target populations for our Phase 2b/3 programs.”

2019 First Quarter Financial Results

• Cash Position: Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were US$57.5 million as of March 31, 2019, compared to cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities ofUS$64.4 million as of December 31, 2018. Net cash used in operating activities for the three months ended March 31, 2019 wasUS$6.8 million, compared to US$6.2 million for the same period in 2018. Spring Bank expects that its existing cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities as of March 31, 2019 is sufficient to fund its operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements into the second quarter of 2021.
• Operating Expenses: Total operating expenses for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019 were US$8.4 million, which consisted of US$5.6 million of research and development (R&D) expenses andUS$2.8 million of general and administrative (G&A) expenses, compared to total operating expenses of US$6.2 million, which consisted ofUS$4.0 million of research and development (R&D) expenses and US$2.2 million of general and administrative (G&A) expenses for the quarter ended March 31, 2018.
• Net loss: The company’s net loss for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019 wasUS$(5.2) million, orUS$(0.32) per basic and diluted share, compared to net loss for the first quarter ended March 31, 2018 ofUS$(4.9) million, orUS$(0.37) per basic and diluted share.

Click here to read the full press release.