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Prothena (PRTA) Reports Narrower-than-Expected Loss in Q3

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Prothena Corporation (PRTA - Free Report) reported encouraging results for the third quarter of 2019.

The company reported a loss of 49 cents per share, narrower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 54 cents and the year-ago quarter’s loss of 62 cents.

Quarterly revenues came in at $0.20 million, surpassing the Zacks Consensus of by 36.67%. Revenues were down from $0.25 million in the year-ago quarter. Revenues mainly came from the company’s collaboration with Roche Holdings (RHHBY - Free Report) .

The company’s shares have lost 11.3% in the year so far against the industry’s growth of 0.9%.

 

Quarter in Detail

R&D expenses were $12.5 million, down from $18.5 million in the year-ago quarter due to lower clinical trial costs.

General and administrative (G&A) expenses came in at $8.7 million, down from $9.2 million in the year-ago quarter.

As of Sep 30, 2019, Prothena had $393 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash.

Pipeline Updates

The company is evaluating prasinezumab (PRX002/RG7935) in collaboration with Roche for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. A phase II study, PASADENA, which is being conducted by Roche among patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is ongoing and data from the part I of the study are expected in 2020.

Prothena has a global neuroscience research & development collaboration with Celgene Corp. to develop new therapies for a broad range of neurodegenerative diseases. The collaboration is focused on three targets implicated in the pathogenesis of several neurodegenerative diseases, inducing tau, TDP-43 and an undisclosed third. The preclinical tau program initiated the cell-line development of a lead candidate in the second quarter.

Our Take

The narrower-than-expected loss in the third quarter was encouraging for Prothena. We expect investors’ focus to remain on pipeline updates, as the company has no approved product in its portfolio yet.

Zacks Rank & Stock to Consider

Prothena currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

A better-ranked stock in this space is Lannett Inc. , which sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Lannett’s earnings per share estimates have increased to $1.25 from $1.18 in the past 60 days.

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