- Calithera Biosciences (NASDAQ:CALA) stock plunges after Ladenburg analyst Aydin Huseynov lowered the price target to $1.50 from $3 and maintains a Buy rating on the shares after its Q1 results.
- The company is developing two recently in-licensed oncology assets simultaneously, but the current cash burn and the stock performance do not support this approach, Huseynov tells investors in a research note.
- The analyst believes Calithera (CALA) needs to focus only on mivavotinib and slash its expenses in order to be able to make it to the next inflection point early next year.
- Cash and cash equivalents of $44.7M together with proceeds from its public offering is expected to be sufficient to fund its operating plan through 2Q23.
- “We made significant headway in the transfer of mivavotinib and sapanisertib materials to Calithera during the first quarter and are well into site start-up activities. We are on track to begin enrolling patients in both mivavotinib and sapanisertib trials in the second quarter of 2022 and expect to share data from these studies by the first quarter of 2023,” said Susan Molineaux, PhD, president and chief executive officer of Calithera. “We are also excited about our preclinical synthetic lethality program, having presented the first data from our internally-discovered, first-of-their-kind VPS4A inhibitors at the AACR Annual Meeting. This year has shaped up to be an exciting one for Calithera, given the potential we see in both our clinical and preclinical programs.”