Clinical-stage company,

Prothena Corporation


PRTA

, reported encouraging results for the fourth quarter of 2020.

The company reported a loss of 77 cents per share, narrower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 83 cents but wider than the year-ago quarter’s loss of 54 cents.

Revenues mainly came from the company’s collaboration with

Roche Holdings


RHHBY

. Quarterly revenues came in at $0.4 million, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 80%. Revenues were up from $0.2 million in the year-ago quarter.

The company’s shares have gained 30.7% in the past year against the

industry

’s growth of 11.9%.

Quarter in Detail

R&D expenses were $20.8 million, up from $15.5 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 $9.9 million, up from $8.1 million in the year-ago quarter.

As of Dec 31, 2020, Prothena had $298.1 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 and Prothena will advance prasinezumab into a late-stage phase IIb study in patients with early Parkinson’s disease. The study will be designed to further assess the efficacy of prasinezumab by expanding enrollment in PASADENA to include patients with early Parkinson’s disease on stable levodopa therapy.  Roche earlier presented encouraging results from the phase II PASADENA study of prasinezumab in patients with early Parkinson’s disease.

Prothena plans to advance birtamimab, a potential treatment for AL amyloidosis, into the confirmatory phase III AFFIRM-AL study in Mayo Stage IV patients with AL amyloidosis. This phase III study is a global, registration-enabling study that will be conducted with a primary endpoint of all-cause mortality at p≤0.10 under a Special Protocol Assessment (SPA) agreement with the FDA.

Prothena reported encouraging results from the phase I study of PRX004, a potential treatment for ATTR amyloidosis. PRX004 showed favorable results as demonstrated by slowing of neuropathy progression for all 7 evaluable patients at 9 months, including improvement in neuropathy in 3 of the 7 patients and improved cardiac systolic function for all 7 patients.

Meanwhile, the company is advancing an early-stage pipeline of programs for a number of potential neurological indications with

Bristol-Myers Squibb


BMY

. Preclinical data on PRX005 will be presented next month. The company also expects to file an IND in the third quarter of 2021, which will lead to a potential payment of $80 million from Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Prothena has initiated IND-enabling studies for PRX012, its preclinical Aβ program, and expects to file an IND in 2022.

Zacks Rank & A Stock to Consider

Prothena currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). A better-ranked stock in the biotech space is

Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc

.

ALXN

, which currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see


the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here


.

Earnings estimates for Alexion for 2021 are up 4 cents in the past 30 days.

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