Cannabis Biotechs Post Financial Results, Downplaying Losses

The biopharmaceutical companies Zynerba Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ZYNE) and Corbus Pharmaceuticals Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRBP) today posted their financial results for the third quarter, which ended on September 30, 2018. In the results, both companies glossed over their less than stellar financial situation, opting instead to highlight their clinical achievements over the last quarter.

Zynerba Pharmaceuticals

Over the last quarter, Zynerba was able to raise approximately $29.9 million through a follow-on public offer. The company has approximately $66.2 million in cash and cash equivalents, slightly down from $66.5 million at the start of the year. Company management believes that this is sufficient capital for the company to continue operations into at least the first half of 2020. Net losses for the quarter were down, falling from $8.31 million during the same period in the previous year to $7.8 million. The net loss per share, basic and diluted, was $0.47. “The momentum we established in the first half of 2018 continued through the third quarter,” commented Armando Anido, Chairman and CEO of Zynerba. “We began enrolling patients into CONNECT-FX, our pivotal study in Fragile X syndrome and we expect to complete enrollment in BELIEVE-1, our Phase 2 study in developmental and epileptic encephalopathies, before year end. With our third quarter 2018 follow-on offering, we are well capitalized and expect our current cash to take us through the presentation of top line data for both of these studies.”

Corbus Pharmaceuticals

Losses for the company increased over the last quarter, rising from $6.9 million in the same period in the previous year to $14.6 million. Revenue for the quarter rose, but not nearly enough to cover its losses; increasing from $0.3 million to $1.1 million. The increase in revenue was attributed to a $25 million Development Award Agreement with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. However, operating expenses also rose, going from $8.2 million to $16 million; which was attributed to increased spending for clinical studies. Currently, Corbus has $55.7 million in cash and cash equivalents. Combined with the grant from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the company believes that it has enough capital to continue operating until the fourth quarter of 2019. “Our expanded pipeline of ECS-targeting drug candidates is now diversified with lenabasum, our lead late-stage clinical asset in four rare inflammatory indications with expected clinical read-out in 2020, together with CRB-4001, which is expected to enter the clinic in 2019 as a novel candidate for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH,” said Corbus CEO, Yuval Cohen, Ph.D. “We have progressed in securing a platform for potential future growth for our Company from our library of over 600 compounds targeting ECS pathways.”