Germany’s GPC Biotech, which is in the process of combining with the USA’s Agennix, has posted a narrowing of losses for 2008 though its revenues are sinking.
For the fourth quarter, revenues declined 99% to 31,000 euros, and were down 31% for the full year to 12.4 million euros. GPC’s loss for the quarter was 9 million euros, compared to net income of 3.5 million euros for the like, year-earlier period. For 2008, net loss decreased 71% to 21.3 million euros and the company ended the year with cash and equivalents of 32 million euros.
Last year was a tough one for GPC, brought on by the firm’s decision in July 2007 to pull satraplatin, its late-stage compound as a treatment for prostate cancer. A filing for the drug was withdrawn by the Martinsried-based group after it received a negative response from the US Food and Drug Administration’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee.
That decision set off a turbulent time for GPC, which was forced into a series of restructurings. More cuts have now been made, leaving the firm 11 full-time active employees in Munich and 31 in Princeton, New Jersey.
Now GPC is hoping for a brighter future with Agennix, and the search is on to find a partner for talactoferrin, the latter’s compound which has recently entered Phase III trials for non-small cell lung cancer. The new entity has enough cash to last up to the second quarter of 2010.
Talactoferrin is also being tested in kidney, pancreatic, prostate and breast cancer as well as sepsis and diabetic ulcers.
