NightHawk Biosciences Provides Q1 2023 Business Update

DURHAM, N.C., May 15, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NightHawk Biosciences (NYSE American: NHWK), a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company specializing in the end-to-end development, manufacturing, and commercialization of innovative medical countermeasures that combat unmet and emerging biothreats, today provided strategic, financial, and operational updates for the quarter ended March 31, 2023.

Jeff Wolf, Chief Executive Officer of NightHawk, commented, “We continue to invest in and advance our research and biomanufacturing efforts, including our San Antonio and Manhattan, Kansas biologics manufacturing facilities. We are making steady progress and look forward to providing further updates.”

2023 Financial Results

• For the three months ended March 31, 2023 we recognized $0.1 million of revenue from a licensing agreement with Shattuck Labs and $0.7 million of revenue from Scorpius biomanufacturing services. For the three months ended March 31, 2022 we recognized $0.2 million of grant revenue for qualified expenditures under the CPRIT grant. The decrease in grant revenue in the current-year period is due to the fact that we have recognized all $15.2 million of CPRIT grant revenue. As of March 31, 2023, we had a grants receivable balance of $1.5 million for the final CPRIT tranche, and received those funds in April 2023. . We continue our efforts to secure future non-dilutive grant funding to subsidize ongoing research and development costs.
• Research and development expenses increased approximately 79.5% to $7.0 million for the three months ended March 31, 2023 compared to $3.9 million for the three months ended March 31, 2022. The components of R&D expense are as follows: HS-110 expense decreased $0.1 million primarily due to a decrease in consultants and contract labor expense; HS-130 expense decreased to $0 from $0.5 million due to the deprioritization of the oncology assets; PTX-35 expense increased by $0.3 million primarily due to the expensing of prepaid expenses associated with the discontinued clinical trials and development of the product candidate in the third quarter of 2022;
• ANTHIM (obiltoxaximab) was not acquired until the second quarter of 2022 and the 2023 expense primarily relates to fill finish; other programs expense increased by $0.4 million primarily due to increase in laboratory supplies expense related to preclinical R&D expenses and the operations of the CDMO facility; Unallocated research expenses increased by $2.7 million primarily due to increased personnel costs, including stock-based compensation from stock awards, contractor expense and supplies purchased for discovery projects;
• Cost of revenues were $0.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2023. These expenses primarily reflect direct cost of labor, overhead and material costs for Scorpius biomanufacturing services. There was no cost of revenues for the three months ended March 31, 2022 as the Scorpius facility was not operational.
• Selling, general and administrative expenses were $6.8 million and $3.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. The increase was primarily due to an increase of $1.9 million for consulting and other professional expenses to manage the business and increased personnel costs of $1.0 million, and to a lesser extent, an increase in rent expense of $0.3 million, offset by a decrease in stock-based compensation expense of $0.1 million.
• Net loss attributable to NightHawk Biosciences was approximately $12.8 million, or ($0.49) per basic and diluted share, for the three months ended March 31, 2023, compared to approximately $8.1 million, or ($0.32) per basic and diluted share, for the three months ended March 31, 2022.
• As of March 31, 2023, the Company had approximately $28.6 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments.