H.C. Wainwright lowered its price target for Diffusion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:DFFN) to $3.50 from $10, reflecting dilution from two recent financings. The stock closed at 41 cents on Dec. 17.
Analyst Swayampakula Ramakanth writes that the company currently has pro forma cash of $12.3-million, which “we believe is sufficient to fund operations through the third quarter of 2020.”
On Dec. 10, Diffusion presented promising clinical data from the 19-patient lead-in portion of its ongoing Phase 3 INTACT study at the 2019 inaugural Glioblastoma Drug Development Summit in Boston.
The Phase 3 study is a 236-patient, randomized controlled study to evaluate the efficacy of the company’s lead product, trans sodium crocetinate (TSC), in combination with standard-of-care (SOC) chemoradiation therapy, to treat patients with newly diagnosed unresectable glioblastoma. The comparator arm is SOC alone.
“While the size of lead-in study is small and difficult to draw major conclusions regarding efficacy, however, there was some encouraging data,” Mr. Ramakanth said. “The high-dose TSC treatment achieved substantially higher survival of 86%, compared with both SOC alone arm (13%) of the INTACT study, and the TSC treatment arm (38%) of Phase 2 study.”
According to management, he said Diffusion is seeking a partner to continue the INTACT study.
