On January 28, 2020 Prescient Therapeutics (PTX) reported its health sector peers on the ASX after releasing its quarterly report for the three months to December 31 (Press release, Prescient Therapeutics, JAN 28, 2021, View Source;utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=prescient-therapeutics-asxptx-shares-outperform-on-latest-quarterly-report [SID1234574379]).

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In the report, the oncology specialist highlighted its strong cash position at the end of the quarter, with $18.4 million on hand on December 31.

Over the quarter, Prescient spent just under $1.2 million on operating and investing activities, with the bulk of this coming from research and development (R&D) spend. The company spent $777,000 on R&D over the three months.

However, a neat $1 million R&D tax rebate from the Federal Government helped offset the majority of the quarterly costs, resulting in Prescient recording net cash outflows of only $129,000 for the quarter.

This means with the $18.4 million in available funding, Prescient has enough money to last 143 financial quarters at its current rate of cash burn.

Of course, the government tax rebate is not recorded every quarter, so it’s likely quarterly net cash outflows will be higher in coming months.

Still, Prescient management said its strong cash balance provides the foundation for "ambitious" clinical milestones that will create significant value for shareholders and cancer patients.

PTX anti-cancer pipeline
Two of Prescient’s core products are its PTX-100 and PTX-200 anti-cancer drugs, both in late stages of first-phase clinical trials.

According to the company, PTX-100 is the only drug of its type currently in clinical development across the world given its ability to inhibit a transforming protein known as RhoA.

PTX-200 is designed to inhibit a tumour survival pathway known as Akt, which Prescient said plays a key role in the development of several types of cancer. PTX-200 is currently in phase 1b trials for treating relapsed and refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Importantly, Prescient said in an ongoing PTX-100 trial, patients are staying on the therapy for much longer than anticipated, which is the company said it encouraging.

Looking ahead
Prescient said it is focussed on taking full advantage of its leadership team, which was recently bolstered with the addition of Professor Miles H. Prince to the company’s Scientific Advisory Board.

The company did not provide specific details on what it expects in the near future, but Prescient insisted it has an encouraging outlook given the quality of its board and management team and ongoing trials of its key cancer treatments.

Shareholders like today’s update, with Prescient shares up 8.33 per cent just before market close to 13 cents per share. The wider health care sector is down by a heavy 2.76 per cent.