The Mesoblast limited (ASX: MSB) share price is still volatile as the company continues to report progress in its clinical trials at the same time as burning through its cash reserves at prodigious rates.
Recently the regenerative medicine pioneer announced that Phase III trials designed to test the efficacy of its stem cell medicine in treating children suffering from acute Graft Versus Host Disease (aGVHD) had met their primary endpoint of "day 28 overall response rate".
The company now hopes it can finally secure approval from the U.S. healthcare regulator the FDA to commercially sell its aGVHD treatment in the lucrative US market. It already sells a treatment for aGVHD in children in Japan and recognised revenues around US$1.6 million over the most recent half year as a result of Japanese sales.
The company also has a number of other treatments at advanced clinical trial stages to treat back pain and chronic heart failure in patients with hopes that these too could open the door to big commercial sales growth.
While the potential is exciting, the financials remain weak with a cash outflow of US$11.2 million from operating activities for the most recent half-year period. Over the period the company also signed a significant commercialisation partnership with TiGenix that produced US$11.8 million in revenues.
Investors can expect this stock to remain volatile in 2018.
