Seattle Genetics sees 1st-qtr losses of $8.7M

USA-based Seattle Genetics says that its revenues for the first three months of 2006 fell to $2.1 million from $2.6 million in the same period last year. The firm says that the decline is explained by a drop in revenues from license fee and milestone payments earned through its antibody drug conjugate collaborations. The company also reported net losses for the period of $8.7 million, or $0.21 per share, up from the $7.6 million loss it saw in the comparable period in 2005.

Despite the results, the company's president Clay Siegall, remained upbeat commenting that the firm had seen considerable progress in its developmental pipeline, including the signing of a deal with fellow US company Laureate Pharma covering the scale up manufacture of antibody products SGN-33 and SGN-70.

The group also announced that it had received a notice of allowance from the US Patent and Trademark Office for a patent entitled "Recombinant Anti-CD30 Antibodies and Uses thereof", covering use of such therapeutics in the treatment of Hodgkin's disease, both in combination and as a single agent.