Thursday, Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Inc. (PPHM) reported a narrower loss for the first quarter ended July 31, reflecting increased government contract revenue and higher sales by the company's contract manufacturing unit Avid Bioservices.
First quarter net loss of Peregrine decreased to $2.43 million or $0.01 per share from $5.09 million or $0.02 per share a year earlier. Loss from operations narrowed to $2.19 million from $5.16 million for the same period last year.
Total revenues for the first quarter increased by 345% to $6.75 million from $1.52 million last year.
Government contract revenues increased to $4.67 million from $0.32 million for the same period last year. This is related to the contract with the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency for the Transformational Medical Technologies Initiative to evaluate bavituximab as a potential broad-spectrum treatment for viral hemorrhagic fever infections.
Quarterly manufacturing revenues from its subsidiary, Avid Bioservices increased by 74% to $2.07 million from $1.19 million a year earlier. The company attributed the rise in Avid's revenue to increase in manufacturing services provided to third-party customers during the first quarter.
However, total costs and expenses increased by 34% year-over-year to $8.94 million from $6.68 million for the same period last year mainly due to 49% rise in research and development expenses to $6.07 million from $4.07 million last year.
Steven King, President and CEO of Peregrine said, "In all three of our bavituximab cancer Phase II trials, bavituximab in combination with chemotherapy has demonstrated encouraging signs of anti-tumor activity in patients with advanced breast and lung cancers. All three trials surpassed the requisite efficacy criteria for expansion of patient enrollment."
PPHM, is currently trading at $0.83, down 2.36% on Nasdaq.
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