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Prothena (PRTA) Q3 Earnings and Revenues Miss Estimates

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Clinical-stage company, Prothena Corporation (PRTA - Free Report) , reported disappointing results for the third quarter of 2020.

The company reported a loss of 77 cents per share, wider than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 68 cents and the year-ago quarter’s loss of 49 cents.

Revenues mainly came from the company’s collaboration with Roche Holdings (RHHBY - Free Report) . Quarterly revenues came in at $0.16 million, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 70.54%. Revenues were down from $0.2 million in the year-ago quarter.

The company’s shares have lost 12% in the past year compared with the industry’s decline of 6.4%.

 

Quarter in Detail

R&D expenses were $21.6 million, up from $12.5 million in the year-ago quarter due to higher manufacturing costs, increased collaboration expenses with Roche related to the prasinezumab program and elevated R&D consulting expenses.

General and administrative (G&A) expenses came in at $9.4 million, up from $8.7 million in the year-ago quarter.

As of Sep 30, 2020, Prothena had $317.2 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash.

Pipeline Updates

The company is evaluating prasinezumab in collaboration with Roche for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.

Roche recently presented results from the phase II PASADENA study of prasinezumab in patients with early Parkinson’s disease. Results showed that prasinezumab significantly reduced decline in motor function by 35% (pooled dose levels) versus placebo after one year of treatment on the centrally rated assessment of Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) Part III, a clinical examination of motor function. Additionally, prasinezumab-treated patients demonstrated a significant delay in time to clinically meaningful worsening of motor progression on the site rated assessment of time to at least a 5-point progression on MDS-UPDRS Part III compared to placebo over one year, with a hazard ratio of 0.82.

The companies will advance prasinezumab into a phase IIb study in patients with early Parkinson’s disease. The study will be designed to further assess the efficacy of prasinezumab by expanding the patient population enrolled in PASADENA to include patients with early Parkinson’s disease on stable levodopa therapy.

Prothena expects to report new data in the fourth quarter of this year from the dose-escalation and available LTE portion of the study on PRX004, a potential treatment for ATTR amyloidosis.

Meanwhile, the company is advancing an early-stage pipeline of programs for a number of potential neurological indications. Prothena expects to advance IND-enabling activities in 2020 for PRX005, its preclinical tau program, part of a global neuroscience collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY - Free Report) , and expects to file an IND in 2021.

Prothena has initiated IND-enabling studies for PRX012, its preclinical Aβ program, and expects to file an IND in 2021.

Zacks Rank & A Stock to Consider

Prothena currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A better-ranked stock in the biotech sector is Zoetis (ZTS - Free Report) , which carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Zoetis’ earnings estimates have increased 29 cents for 2020 in the past 90 days.

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