Holliston co. on the hunt for cash as funds in hand dwindle
PHOTO/LAURA FINALDI
Biostage CEO Jim McGorry (left) and Chief Medical Officer Saverio La Francesca hold one of the company's synthetic scaffolds that have worked to regrow esophaguses in pigs.
Holliston’s Biostage will need to raise more money to get to human trials of its bioengineered organ implants to treat throat cancers as its third quarter losses exceed $3 million with a little over $6 million left in cash on hand.
"We are rapidly approaching the most important year for Biostage. Our number one priority is the continued advancement of our esophageal implant program,” Jim McGorry, CEO of Biostage, said in a statement explaining the company is on track for human trials of the treatment to begin in the fourth quarter of 2017.
That new timeline came into play after the company decided, following the advice of officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, to extend the duration of ongoing animal studies and thus push back its investigational new drug (IND) filing. That pushed back the company's timeline for filing for its human testing of a bioengineered organ implants to regenerate parts of the throat for cancer patients. It was planning on submitting its IND application with the goal of beginning human testing as early as the summer.
The increasing losses, up to $3.05 million from $2.29 million for the same quarter a year prior, is primarily because of additional spending within research and development on outsourced preclinical studies. Losses for the year for far, however, are down to $8.24 million from $9.41 million for the first nine months of 2015.
The company ended the quarter with approximately $6.0 million of cash and cash equivalents, which is enough to fund operations into the second quarter.
“It is clear that we will need to raise capital to further execute this plan,” McGorry said in a statement.
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