On May 5, 2021 Heat Biologics, Inc. ("Heat") (NASDAQ: HTBX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing first-in-class therapies to modulate the immune system, including multiple oncology product candidates and a novel COVID-19 vaccine, reported financial, clinical and operational updates for the first quarter ended March 31, 2021 (Press release, Heat Biologics, MAY 5, 2021, View Source [SID1234579150]).

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Jeff Wolf, Chief Executive Officer of Heat, commented, "We continue to make tremendous progress on our clinical programs, including both our oncology program and COVID-19 vaccine program, which we recently advanced into scale-up manufacturing. We are currently reviewing a variety of possible Phase 3 registration settings for HS-110 in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, following positive interim data from our Phase 2 trial in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)."

"We recently announced promising new preclinical data around PTX-35, our potential first-in-class T-cell co-stimulatory antibody at the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting 2021. We are completing enrollment in our Phase 1 PTX-35 trial in patients with solid tumors and expect to share interim data later this year."

"Finally, we have maintained a solid balance sheet with over $128 million of cash and short-term investments, which should provide us substantial runway to fund our current clinical programs and further expand our therapeutic portfolio. Moreover, we believe that upcoming catalysts and milestones have the potential to drive significant shareholder value in 2021," concluded Mr. Wolf.

First Quarter 2021 Financial Results

Recognized $0.5 million of grant revenue for qualified expenditures under the CPRIT and NIH grant compared to $0.9 million of grant revenue for the same period last year. The decrease in grant revenue in the current-year period primarily reflects the expected timing of completion of deliveries under the current phase of the contracts. As of March 31, 2021, we had deferred revenue of $0.09 million for CPRIT proceeds received but for which the costs had not been incurred or the conditions of the award had not been met.
Research and development expenses was $3.4 million and $2.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively.
General and administrative expense was $4.8 million and $3.3 million for the three months ended March 31, 2021 and 2020. The increase was primarily due to stock compensation expense.
Net loss attributable to Heat Biologics was approximately $7.5 million, or ($0.31) per basic and diluted share for the quarter ended March 31, 2021 compared to a net loss of approximately of $6.3 million, or ($0.77) per basic and diluted share for the quarter ended March 31, 2020.
As of March 31, 2021, the Company had approximately $132 million in cash, cash equivalents and short investments.