Armata Pharmaceuticals Inc (ARMP) Stock Extends Rally: Is It Sustainable?
Armata Pharmaceuticals Inc (NYSEAMERICAN:ARMP) The clinical stage biotech company is involved in the development bacteriophage therapeutics which are pathogen specific for treating difficult to treat and antibiotic resistant bacterial infections. The company accomplishes that through the use of its proprietary bacteriophage-based technology.
The company is involved in the development and advancement of a wide pipeline of synthetic and natural phage candidates. The company seeks to advance phage through its drug development expertise and knowledge. Over the past month the Armata Pharmaceuticals stock has been in the middle of a remarkable rally and it continued on Wednesday as the stock went up by as much as 35% following further action. The latest rally in the stock took the gains over the past month to as much as 123%.
On July 11 the company announced that it had gone into a credit and security agreement with the fully owned Innoviva Inc subsidiary Innoviva Strategic Opportunities Inc. It was revealed that the gross proceeds from the agreement following the closure was to the tune of $25 million before deductions owing to transaction related expenditures. However, that was not all.
Armata Pharmaceuticals also announced significant changes in its leadership team as part of a transition process. It was announced that Dr. Deborah L Birx would be the new Chief Executive Officer succeeding Dr. Brian Varnum. The appointment went into effect immediately and on top of that, it was also noted that Dr. Birx would also join the board of directors of the company.
The company further noted that the $25 million proceeds from the new financing would be deployed towards further advancing the pipeline of phage therapeutic candidates. That would include AP PA02 and AP SA02, which aim to treat infections triggered by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus, respectively.
Additionally, the company would also use some of the proceeds from the financing for building its advanced cGMP manufacturing plant. The plant would provide Armata Pharmaceuticals with the capacity to go for strategic partnership opportunities while executing late stage clinical trials concurrently. The company also revealed that it had renegotiated and affected an amendment to its senior convertible credit and security agreement with Innoviva. Due to the amendment the maturity date for the same was extended to January 10, 2025.
On May 31 Armata Pharmaceuticals had announced that a presentation of its Phase 1b/2a SWARM-P.a. clinical trial, which had been recently concluded at the time, was going to be made at the 6th World Conference on Targeting Phage Therapy. The event took place from July 1 to July 2 this year in Paris.
The study in question was a multi-centre, placebo-controlled, multiple ascending dose and double blind study. It had been conducted to figure out the safety, pharmacodynamics, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of the product. Dr. Mina Pastagia, MD and MS, the Chief Medical Officer of the company was scheduled to make the presentation on behalf of Armata Pharmaceuticals. It was going to be part of the 5th session entitled Phage Therapy: Towards Amplification and Innovation