SuperGen reports record cash balance of $72.97 million

By Jennifer Lanning Drey

Portland, Ore., Nov. 9 - SuperGen, Inc. increased its cash balance to $72.97 million during the third quarter, up from $47.66 million at Dec. 31, 2005, according to a company news release.

"From a financial perspective, we are financially secure with the best cash position in our corporate history," said James Manuso, SuperGen's chief executive officer, during the company's quarterly earnings conference call held Thursday.

The company reported a net loss of $2.3 million, or $0.04 per share, compared with a net loss of $2.1 million, also $0.04 per share, for the same period in 2005, according to the release.

In the third quarter, the company continued to align its organizational structure with its financial model, which is expected to substantially lower net operating losses going forward, Manuso said.

"We are a leaner company with more efficient infrastructure that is prepared to move our pipeline of unique, late-stage, preclinical anticancer compounds into clinical development," he said.

During the quarter, SuperGen sold the North American rights for Nipent and Surface Safe to Mayne Pharma in a $34 million transaction that has allowed SuperGen to redeploy some of its financial resources to discovery research and pipeline development, Manuso said.

Also during the quarter, the company received $5 million of a $10 million milestone achieved as the result of the sublicensing of Dacogen by MGI Pharma to Cilag GmbH. The company also earned $1 million in Dacogen royalties during the quarter, Manuso said.

"SuperGen has undergone the first steps toward a very significant transformation. Milestone and royalty revenue is beginning to replace product revenue. At the same time, we're making great strides at moving new products into the clinic through our internal discovery and development efforts," Manuso said.

The company also presented four posters detailing clinical data on MP-529, a selective kinase inhibitor that is one of its lead compounds, at the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer-National Cancer Institute-American Association for Cancer Research Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Prague on Thursday.

SuperGen is a pharmaceutical company based in Dublin, Calif.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.