What happened
Shares of Alaunos Therapeutics (TCRT 8.26%) sank 4.6% as of the market close on Monday after falling as much as 12.5% earlier in the day. The decline appears to be the result of profit-taking after Alaunos reported positive early results last week from a phase 1/2 study evaluating its T-cell receptor (TCR-T) therapies in treating several types of cancer.
Alaunos also filed a prospectus last week to sell up to $50 million worth of its stock over time. These stock offerings will dilute the value of existing shares.
So what
Today's downward move for the biotech stock is probably more noise than anything else. Nothing has changed about the underlying prospects for Alaunos' TCR-T pipeline. And those prospects are promising, although a lot of uncertainty remains.
Alaunos announced on Sept. 6, 2022 that the first patient dosed with its experimental TCR-T cell therapy achieved a confirmed objective partial response (a decrease in tumor size). That news was encouraging. However, it's way too soon to know how safe and effective the therapy will actually be across a larger number of patients.
As for the planned stock offerings, Alaunos didn't provide a detailed schedule for when new shares would be issued. The company only stated that it would sell new shares "from time to time." Alaunos intends to use proceeds generated by the stock offerings to fund pipeline programs and for other purposes.
Now what
Investors will only have to wait a few weeks to learn more about the promising early-stage results. Alaunos plans to present data at the International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference (CICON) that's scheduled from Sept. 28 through Oct. 1.
