On March 11, 2022 Kiromic BioPharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: KRBP) ("Kiromic" or the "Company"), a clinical-stage fully integrated biotherapeutics company using its proprietary DIAMOND artificial intelligence (AI) and big data mining platform to discover and develop cell and gene therapies with a therapeutic focus on immuno-oncology and other diseases, reported business updates and financial results for its third quarter ending September 30, 2021 (Press release, Kiromic, MAR 11, 2022, View Source [SID1234609976]).
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"We believe that we made meaningful progress during the third quarter of 2021 with our corporate developments and with our chemical manufacturing and control manufacturing processes. We believe these developments will allow us to effectively address the FDA clinical hold comments, and will ensure that we are well positioned to advance our oncology cell therapy trial candidates. We were also able to recently complete an internal review associated with certain complaints that the Company received through its complaint hotline. The internal review was conducted by a Special Committee of our Board of Directors. The Company was precluded from filing its Form 10-Q in November 2021 pending completion of the internal review," stated Pietro Bersani, interim Chief Executive Officer of Kiromic BioPharma.
Mr. Bersani continued: "As a result of the internal review, we also appointed two new board members, Frank Tirelli and Karen Reeves, and appointed Michael Nagel as the chairperson of our board of directors. We also established a disclosure committee, which is charged with preparing and overseeing all corporate disclosures made by the Company in response to the ineffectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures outlined in the Form 8-K filed on February 2, 2022. Accordingly, we anticipate providing more updates and increasing the frequency of our shareholder communications as we report on our progress and upcoming milestones."
Recent Business Highlights:
Surpassed 1.5 billion Data Points Powering Kiromic’s DIAMONDAI Platform for Drug Discovery and Development: The Company added approximately 300 million data points in 2021, representing a 25% increase from 2020. Kiromic’s growing machine learning platform is designed to identify new therapeutic opportunities, prioritizing T and B cell targets, and accelerate development. The increase was primarily driven by Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium ("CPTAC") and Blood Donor Artificial Intelligence analysis. CPTAC is a data portal serving as a centralized repository for the public dissemination of proteomic sequence datasets collected by CPTAC along with corresponding genomic sequence datasets. The National Cancer Institute’s CPTAC is a national effort to accelerate the understanding of the molecular basis of cancer through the application of large-scale proteome and genome analysis, or proteogenomics.
Completion of InSilico Solutions, LLC Acquisition: On July 26, 2021, we announced the completion of the Insilico Solutions, LLC acquisition. InSilico Solutions is a world-class bioinformatics and artificial intelligence (AI) innovator with long-standing collaborative relationships with its clients at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the National Cancer Institute. With this acquisition, Kiromic expanded its team with experts in bioinformatics and AI to accelerate its AI-driven efforts identifying the optimal biomarkers for advanced immuno-oncology therapies like CAR-T cell therapy.
Closing of Public Offering: On July 2, 2021, we received net proceeds of $37,118,100 from a public offering, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions of $2,494,900 and other offering expenses of $387,000 incurred. The Company issued and sold 8,000,000 shares of common stock in the public offering at a price of $5.00 per share. In connection with the public offering, 400,000 representative warrants were issued with a price of $6.25 per share
Key Hires in Bioinformatics, Manufacturing, Clinical Translational Medicine and Operations: The Company added 24 new hires to positions across Bioinformatics, Manufacturing, Clinical Translational Medicine, and Operations. This represents a total of 37 employees, which is an increase from 13 as of December 31, 2020.
Q3 2021 Financial Highlights
Cash Position: Cash and cash equivalents were $36,161,800 as of September 30, 2021, compared to $10,150,500 as of December 31, 2020. The difference is attributable to cash outflows of $11,165,300, and $713,500 for operating activities, and investing activities, respectively. There were cash inflows of $36,881,100 from financing activities.
R&D Expenses: Our research and development expenses increased by $2,261,000, or 184.47%, to $3,486,700 for the three months ended September 30, 2021, from $1,225,700 for the three months ended September 30, 2020. Our research and development expenses increased by $4,504,300, or 127.74%, to $8,030,400 for the nine months ended September 30, 2021, from $3,526,100 for the nine months ended September 30, 2020. The increase was attributable to increased headcount, manufacturing, and experimentation costs for our ALEXIS-ISO-1 clinical trial development.
G&A Expenses: Our general and administrative expenses increased by $1,465,600, or 123.16%, to $2,655,600 for the three months ended September 30, 2021, from $1,190,000 for the three months ended September 30, 2020. Our general and administrative expenses decreased by $5,068,500, or 41.86%, to $7,040,700 for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 from $12,109,200 for the nine months ended September 30, 2020. This decrease was primarily due to reduced stock compensation expenses.
Net Loss: Our net loss decreased to $14,953,600 during the nine months ended September 30, 2021 compared to $15,635,300 during the nine months ended September 30, 2020.