(By Balaseshan) Pain Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: PTIE) reported a wider fourth quarter loss due to higher operating expenses and lower revenue. Results missed Street's expectations.
Loss for the fourth quarter widened to $1.80 million or $0.04 per share from $391,000 or $0.01 per share in the same period last year.
Total revenue declined 10.2% to $2.47 million, primarily due to lower collaboration revenue from reimbursements of research and development expenses under collaboration agreement with Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE).
Analysts, on average, polled by Thomson Reuters had expected a loss of $0.02 per share on revenue of $2.79 million for the fourth quarter.
Research and development expenses rose to $2.10 million from $1.71 million, while general and administrative expenses increased to $2.21 million from $1.62 million.
At December 31, 2012, the company's cash and equivalents were $56.3 million. Pain Therapeutics expects net cash usage for the first half of 2013 to be under $5.0 million.
The company's lead drug candidate is called REMOXY (oxycodone), which is used for patients with moderate-to-severe chronic pain. The drug is designed to discourage common methods of tampering associated with prescription analgesic misuse and abuse.
The company is eligible to receive up to an additional $120.0 million in clinical/regulatory milestone payments, including a $15.0 million payment upon FDA approval of REMOXY. Upon the commercial launch of REMOXY, PTIE will receive from Pfizer a royalty of 20% of net sales in the U.S., except as to the first $1.0 billion in cumulative net sales, which royalty is set at 15%.
PTIE is trading down 2.41% at $2.84 on Wednesday. The stock has been trading between $2.34 and $5.86 for the past 52 weeks.