Zafgen Inc (NASDAQ:ZFGN), recently announced its financial results for the third quarter of the fiscal year. The company reported “strong balance sheet,” which suffered a few impacts due to the July restructuring. Zafgen stated that until 30 September 2016, the Cash, Cash Equivalents and Marketable Securities was $138.7 million. For the Q3 2016, the company suffered a net loss of $14.7 million or $0.54 per share. This was $19.9 million in Q3 2015 over the same period.
Company’s ongoing ZGN-1061 clinical trial results
Zafgen stated that the positive balance sheet of company has allowed it to have enough funds for development of ZGN-1061 that is expected to be a booster for MetAP2. Patricia Allen, the company’s Chief Financial Officer said that they have enough cash until 2018. By this time, Zafgen is expecting to have in hand, the results of data from ZGN-106’s Phase 2a clinical trial.
At this moment, Zafgen said, the company is in a positive mindset to report top-line results through the ZGN-1061 Phase 1 clinical trial, which are expected in Q1 2017.
It also announced that dosing in Phase 1 clinical trial is on time and has already been started off. In this clinical trial stage, there shall be a single ascending dose (SAD) portion, where 48 patients will be enrolled. Meanwhile, in multiple ascending dose (MAD) portions, there will be 24 patients. In MAD portion, the patients shall be evaluated for weight loss, tolerability and safety among the patients, over a period of approximately a month.
Important R&D Fund
For the Q32016, the company said, its R&D expense was $10.0 million. In the previous year, the company had the same expense of $14.2 million. The reason for decrease in R&D expense is attributed to lower manufacturing cost (of beloranib and ZGN-839) as well as clinical and pre-clinical costs.
The company says that these decreases were offset by spending more on ZGN-1061, the paramount importance treatment, it is focusing on.
