Dallas, Texas 10/09/2013 (Financialstrend) – On October 1, ArQule, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARQL) announced that it has observed forward movement in its clinical trial of its lead drug candidate “tivantinib”. It is tagged with code ARQ 197 as part of the FDA approval process and has suffered couple of setbacks since January of this year, before October 1 announcement.
“Tivantinib” is being jointly developed by ArQule and Japanese drug maker Daiichi Sankyo. If the trails conclude successfully and ArQule manages to hand hold and bring the product to market, then it would be the first revenue generating drug from the biotech firm.
ArQule has also published the results from its phase 3 trial code named MARQUEE at the recently concluded European Cancer Congress. The trail involved administering a combination of “tivantinib with tarceva” which is an approved drug of Roche. The treatment being developed is for treating non small cell lung cancers. The results indicated that the test combination was very effective in treating patients suffering from lung cancer. The patients administered with this target drug showed improvements in survival. In a bid to make sure it has a plan B in place the test drug is also being evaluated as a treatment for hepatocelluar cancer.
Since the announcement of the positive developments were made, the stock of the drug maker has seen short rally. As of close of business on October 8, the shares were trading at $2.31 per share down 1.28% from its previous day close. At current valuations, the stock is trading 27% below its 52 week high valuations and is up 8.9% from its 52 week low pricing. The firm has a market cap of $144 million with sales of $26.2 million over the past 12 months tailing period. The stock has 62.4 million shares outstanding of which 63% is owned by institutional investors.