Dallas, Texas 11/07/2013 (Financialstrend) – The micro mini caped, biotech firm Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:FPRX) has just about completed one month of trading on the browsers. While it is still initial days the firm has attracted lot of attention from rating agencies who have been bullish about the prospects of the stock.
In an announcement geared to support the bullishness about the stock, the firm announced on November 5 that it has entered into a licensing deal with cancer drug maker ADC Therapeutics Sarl (‘ADC Therapeutics’). As part of the deal, Auven will initiate clinical trials to test out target drugs for cancer related ailments by using antibodies that it has licensed from Five Prime. ADC specializes in developing cures which combine antibodies with “pyrrolobenzodiazepine” based target drugs.
Commenting about the licensing deal, Lewis Williams who is the president and chief executive officer of Five Prime is quoted as saying, ”ADC Therapeutics is a leader in developing proprietary antibody-drug conjugates targeting major cancers such as breast, lung, prostate, renal and blood. We believe that antibodies directed toward this protein target, which is found on a variety of tumour types, will be most efficacious when armed with a cytotoxic drug conjugate. This strategic license allows us to progress a program by leveraging Five Prime’s strength in the development of novel biologic products and ADCT’s complementary strength in arming antibodies for use in treating cancer.”
The clinical stage firm has developed an exhaustive portfolio of close to 5,600 “human extracellular proteins”. Using its patented methods the firm identifies new targets from is list to explore possibilities of developing effective protein therapeutics. The firm has marshelled market cap of $13.26 million and accumulated net loss of $27 million in the past 12 months of its operations. Since its inception of public trading the stock has shed 18% of its market value.