Health and Healthcare

How Aslan Pharma Is Capitalizing on Its Huge Atopic Dermatitis Success

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Aslan Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (NASDAQ: ASLN) has been on a roller coaster for the past two weeks. Shares were less than $0.50 apiece in November, and only yesterday shares peaked at over $8. Now the stock is coming back to earth, with the company announcing that it will be capitalizing on these gains with a secondary offering.

The company is offering roughly 5.12 American depositary shares at $2.50 apiece, with an overallotment option for an additional 768,679. Each American depositary shares represents five ordinary shares of Aslan. At this price, the entire offering is valued up to $14.73 million.

Aslan intends to use the net proceeds from the offering, together with its existing cash and cash equivalents, to fund the clinical development of ASLAN004 and ASLAN003 and for general corporate purposes.

Shares jumped on Monday to a 52-week high after the firm announced positive preliminary data from the lowest dose cohort of its ongoing multiple ascending dose study of ASLAN004 for the treatment of moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis.

For this preliminary data, the firm reviewed unclean blinded data, including the Eczema Area and Severity Index scores of the three patients that have completed at least one month of dosing. The scores were reduced by 85%, 70% and 59% from baseline, and they continued to fall at four weeks, with maximal efficacy expected at six to eight weeks.

The data monitoring committee will meet in late December, after which the second dose cohort is expected to open. The study will recruit up to 50 moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis patients, and study completion is expected in the second half of 2020, with interim results expected in early 2020.

Shares of Aslan traded down about 47% on Tuesday to $2.74, in a 52-week range of $0.35 to $8.18. The consensus price target is $4.67.


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