Kite Pharma (KITE) Q3 Loss Narrower Than Expected; Shares Up

Kite Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:KITE) is a development-stage company focused on the development of immuno-oncology treatments and is looking to revolutionize cancer treatments by engaging the body’s own immune system to treat cancer. Kite uses eACT to genetically modify T cells to express either CARs or TCRs. The modified T-cells are designed to recognize and destroy cancer cells. Immuno-oncology is a hot therapeutic area with huge commercial potential.

With no approved products in its portfolio, investor focus will primarily be on the company’s cash burn and pipeline updates.

KITE-C19, its lead pipeline candidate, is currently in the pivotal phase of a phase I-II study (ZUMA-1) in patients with refractory diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) including primary mediastinal B cell lymphoma (PMBCL) and transformed follicular lymphoma (TFL). All these are types of aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). In September, the company announced encouraging top-line results from the phase II part of ZUMA-1 study and expects to file a Biologic license application (BLA) in the DLBCL, TFL and PMBCL indications, based on this data. Kite plans to initiate a rolling submission of the BLA by the end of December this year with a targeted completion by the end of the first quarter 2017. KTE-C19 is expected to be launched in 2017. Meanwhile, KTE-C19 is being evaluated in other cancer studies as well.

KITE, which started trading from Jun 2014, has a mixed record of earnings surprises. It delivered positive earnings surprises in two of the past four quarter while missed in the other two, bring the average surprise to a positive 8.48%.

Currently, KITE has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell), but that could definitely change following the company’s earnings report which was just released. We have highlighted some of the key stats from this just-revealed announcement below:

Loss Narrower-Than-Expected: KITE reported third quarter 2016 loss of 1.49 cents per share, narrower than our consensus estimate of a loss of $1.68 cents per share.

Revenues Beat: Revenues in the reported quarter surpassed expectations as well. KITE posted revenues of $7.3 million, compared to our consensus estimate of $4.95 million.

Key Stats: While Kite’s research and development expenses shot up 163.6% from the year-ago period to $57.3 million in the reported quarter, general and administrative expenses were $25.0 million, up 124.8% from the year-ago period.

Pre-Market Trading: Shares shot up 12% in pre-market trading.

Check back later for our full write up on this KITE earnings report later!

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