Earnings Labs

Cellectar Biosciences, Inc. (CLRB)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 24, 2015

$2.56

-0.02%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Cellectar Biosciences' Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we’ll conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. [Operator Instructions] And as a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to hand the conference over to Miss Kate McNeil, Vice President, Investor Relations. Ma’am, you may begin.

Kate McNeil

Analyst

Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to Cellectar Biosciences' full year 2014 conference call and webcast. We announced our full year financial results this afternoon just after the close of the U.S. financial markets and our press release can be found on our website at www.cellectar.com. Joining me from Cellectar is Dr. Simon Pedder, Chief Executive Officer; Dr. Jamey Weichert, Chief Scientific Officer, Chad Kolean, Chief Financial Officer; Dr. Kevin Kozak, Chief Medical Officer and Dr. Cameron Szakacs, Vice President of Clinical Development. Before I turn the call over to Dr. Pedder, let me note that some of the remarks you will hear today may contain forward-looking statements about the company’s performance. We may also make forward-looking statements during the Q&A session following our prepared remarks. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees and there are a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in these forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from those in these forward-looking statements is contained in our filings and periodic reports filed with the SEC, copies of which are available on our website or maybe requested directly from the company. Forward-looking statements are made as of today’s date and we do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during today’s call. With that said, I will now turn the call over to Dr. Pedder. Simon?

Simon Pedder

Analyst

Thanks, Kate and thanks everyone for joining us this afternoon to review the financial and operational results of the past year. Following our prepared remarks we will take some time to answer any outstanding questions. This time last year we hosted our first quarterly conference call with investors and outlined for you our plans to implement changes intended to strengthen our business. These changes covered nearly every aspect of our business from significant corporate changes to a new focused clinical and regulatory strategy. Now, a year later we are beginning to really feel the impact of these initiatives and believe that if we execute our clinical programs as planned in the coming year, the data generated should provide a solid basis for future growth and improved shareholder value. Before we run through the specific achievements of the year, I will ask Chad to provide us with a brief review of the financial results reported for the year and provide an update on our financial guidance. Chad, why don’t you go ahead and get us started.

Chad Kolean

Analyst

Thank you, Simon. As Kate indicated, we issued a press release this afternoon, highlighting our financial results for the year ended December 31, 2014. This announcement follows the more detailed financial reporting included in our 10-K that was filed this morning with the SEC and can be found on our website. For the year ended December 31, 2014 we reported a net loss attributable to common shareholders of $8.1 million or $1.77 per share. This compares to a net loss of $10.8 million or $3.86 per share reported the prior year. You may recall that as a result of the management board restructuring that was initiated in 2013; Cellectar recorded approximately $1.1 million in restructuring expense for fiscal year 2013. Those restructuring changes also had a minor impact on the year just ended resulting in an additional $2.2 million in restructuring expenses in 2014. Research and development expense for the year was approximately $6.0 million, a decrease from the approximately $6.9 million reported for the full year 2013. This decrease was primarily attributable to a reduction in salaries and stock-based compensation associated with the restructuring efforts I just mentioned. Similarly for the full year, general and administrative expense decreased from approximately $4.4 million in 2013 to approximately $3.7 million in 2014, primarily as a result of the decrease in stock-based compensation. To recap, we ended the year with $9.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, as opposed to $2.4 million at December 31, 2013. As you may know this improvement is a result of having completed an underwritten offering in August 2014 that resulted in gross proceeds of approximately 13.5 million. After deducting expenses related to the offering, net proceeds to the company were approximately $11.9 million. In addition to bringing in necessary capital, the offering also allowed us to eliminate $4.2 million of debt that was issued in February 2014. This was done by allowing those shareholders that had provided us with bridge funding to exchange their convertible debentures for shares and warrants on the same terms offered to buyers in the August run. With that I will turn the call back over to Simon.

Simon Pedder

Analyst

Thanks Chad. While the restructuring efforts and the bulk of the expenses were incurred in late 2013 as Chad mentioned and the meaningful changes that we implemented really began to take shape early in 2014. Following the board and management changes implemented late in 2013, we continued to challenge ourselves to develop a cohesive development strategy that would maximize return, minimize risk and meaningfully advance a very promising portfolio of cancer targeting asset. We recognized immediately that a critical component of this effort would also involve some significant corporate changes. To that end, we began by changing the company name to Cellectar Biosciences to more accurately reflect the assets under development and the considerable research that had already been conducted. Under this new name we made it a strategic priority to increase the visibility of both the existing body of clinical findings and more importantly educate the community on the potential of this technology to radically change the way we diagnose entry cancer through the highly targeted delivery of both diagnostic and therapeutic agents. We prioritize several initiatives to achieve this goal. We created a new business development position and cast Patrick Genn, a long time member of the Cellectar team with leading our efforts to articulate the potential application of our technology and identify potential partners with whom collaborations and/or licensing deals maybe mutually beneficial. We also increased our investor relations efforts, seeking to increase our visibility among institutional investors, ensure clear understanding of our business amongst stakeholders and create an ongoing dialogue with investors. Kate McNeil has been working on this effort, introducing our story to a new audience and seeking opportunity to speak at more investor conferences and implementing practises like these quarterly conference calls. Notably we’ve had an impressed ended [ph] year in terms of pure…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir.[Operator Instructions]

Kate McNeil

Analyst

Simon, while we are waiting to see if there are any questions online we did receive a question from an investor via email part at the start of the call, so I’m going to go ahead and read that to you to address. Would you please estimate the date for I-131-CLR1404 data, I didn’t see an estimated date in today’s 10-K and the last presentations that you expected in 2015 for the clinical trials.gov record has December 2016 as the estimated study completion date. Thank you.

Simon Pedder

Analyst

Thanks Kate. Well as I mentioned in our prepared remarks we expect to see data relatively early in that study since we think we are starting out with a significant dose as seen in our Phase IA and IB that was done in solid tumors. To the point that we think we’ll have some very interesting data by the end of 2015. The actual date that’s put into clinical trials.gov is often the estimation of the entire completion of the study which most often means a complete study report finalized and sent off to the agency. We certainly would not move that late, we think that early data will be indicative of whether or not to move the program forward and that’s why we think we’ll have meaningful data before the end of 2015.

Kate McNeil

Analyst

Thank you, Simon. Operator, do we have any other questions on the line at this time?

Operator

Operator

I’m showing no one in queue at this time.

Simon Pedder

Analyst

All right in that case, I’d like to thank everybody again for joining us for today’s call and hope you will continue to follow our progress. We look forward to speaking with you again all very well soon and have a great evening everyone. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. This concludes our program. You may all disconnect and have a wonderful day.