Friday, January 17, 2014

Mast Therapeutics Moving MST-188 To Phase 3 Trials

Mast Therapeutics (MSTX) has continued to make progress since the last time I checked them out in February 2013.  I need to clarify one hurdle they must surpass to be competitive.  I had mentioned the per-pill dosage cost in my last article as a comparable price point of a competing product.  Their drug MST-188 is injectable as an acute treatment, so comparing it to pills would not be an apples-to-apples analogy.  

It's good that they're trying to apply MST-188 to other ailments besides sickle cell anemia.  This potentially gives them fallback options if the Phase 3 trials for sickle-cell patients are not productive.  Oh BTW, they still have a page on ANX-514 but I don't see any recent developments with that drug.  

Note their 10-Q for November 4, 2013.  Their expenses for the MST-188 clinical studies are increasing.  Their SGA expenses are increasing even though they're not selling anything.  I did mention in my last blog post on this company that they would need a lot more cash to conduct their trials.  They priced an SPO in June 2014 but I do not see a follow-up press release on when they closed the fundraising round.  I will continue to check up on Mast Therapeutics as it moves forward. 

Full disclosure:  No position in MSTX at this time.