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Prothena (PRTA) Q1 Loss Wider Than Expected, Pipeline in Focus

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Clinical-stage company, Prothena Corporation (PRTA - Free Report) , reported a loss of 91 cents per share, wider than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 80 cents and the year-ago quarter’s loss of 59 cents.

Revenues mainly came from the company’s collaboration with Roche Holdings (RHHBY - Free Report) . Quarterly revenues came in at $160,000, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3.03%. Revenues were up from $141,000 in the year-ago quarter.

The company’s shares have surged 91.3% in the year so far against the industry’s decline of 6.5%.

 

Quarter in Detail

R&D expenses were $21.1 million, up from $15.2 million in the year-ago quarter, primarily due to higher R&D consulting expenses, increased personnel expenses and elevated manufacturing expenses primarily related to the PRX012 and birtamimab programs.

General and administrative (G&A) expenses came in at $11.1 million, up from $9.7 million in the year-ago quarter, primarily due to higher personnel expenses and increased expenses for the directors’ and officers’ insurance premium.

As of Mar 31, 2021, Prothena had $3457.7 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, and no debt.

Pipeline Updates

The company is evaluating prasinezumab in collaboration with Roche for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Prothena earned a $60-million milestone with the first patient dosed in the PADOVA study in the second quarter.

Prothena announced plans in February 2021 to advance birtamimab, a potential treatment for AL amyloidosis, to the confirmatory phase III AFFIRM-AL study in Mayo Stage IV patients with AL amyloidosis. The decision was based on the significant survival benefit favoring birtamimab, from the previous VITAL study in a subset of patients categorized as Mayo Stage IV at baseline and multiple in-depth discussions with the FDA.

Prothena reported encouraging results from the phase I study of 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 with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY - Free Report) .  PRX005, a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), is an investigational antibody that targets tau, a protein implicated in diseases including AD, frontotemporal dementia (FTD), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and other tauopathies.

PRX005 demonstrated significant inhibition of cell-to-cell transmission and neuronal internalization in vitro and in vivo, and slowed pathological progression in a tau transgenic mouse model. An Investigational New Drug Application (IND) is expected by the third quarter of 2021.

 

Prothena Corporation plc Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Prothena Corporation plc Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Prothena Corporation plc price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Prothena Corporation plc Quote

Zacks Rank & Stock to Consider

Prothena currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A better-ranked stock in the healthcare sector includes Repligen Corp. (RGEN - 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.

Repligen’s earnings estimates have increased 25 cents for 2021 in the past 90 days.

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