www.bethelfinance.com
Bethel Finance news:
NasVax Ltd. (TASE: NSVX) believes that GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE; LSE: GSK) will not exercise its options on proteins developed by NasVax subsidiary Protea Vaccine Technologies Ltd, after receiving no word from the company by the options' expiry date, yesterday.
Unless GlaxoSmithKline notifies NasVax otherwise, the cooperation agreement between them will expire, and NasVax will only receive a final payment for a preclinical trial on the product. NasVax received €2.4 million under the agreement to date, an important source of income.
In a notice to the TASE today, NasVax said that it retained full rights to the pneumococcal proteins for the development of a universal protein-based Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine, and that it had the right to commercialize them with other partners.
NasVax has three other products under development, and it has a cooperation agreement with Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; LSE: NOV; SWX: NOVZ) to develop improved vaccines with NasVax's productVaxiSome. Novartis was due to announce an extension of the agreement, but postponed an announcement by several months.
NasVax is also independently develop a treatment for Alzheimer's disease, which is undergoing preclinical animal trials. The company's leading product, AntiCD3 is immunotherapy that targets a $5-6 billion market, assuming that the product treats several inflammatory diseases. In contrast to other companies developing similar products, earlier this year NasVax reported positive results in a Phase IIa safety and efficacy trial of the drug for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH or fatty liver disease). There is no current treatment for NASH. Other companies are testing AntiCD3 on other inflammatory diseases.
NasVax is due to begin a Phase II clinical trial of AntiCD3 for the treatment of NASH. NasVax had NIS 16 million in cash at the end of September, giving it the wherewithal to begin and even complete the trial, unless it decided to conduct several trials simultaneously.
NasVax's share price fell 2.8% by mid-afternoon today to NIS 1.61, giving it a market cap of NIS 65 million.
No comments:
Post a Comment