Arrowhead Hits Another Mark

(RTTNews) - Shares of Arrowhead Research Corp. (ARWR) touched another new 52-week high of $8.48 on Monday before closing the day's trading at $8.19. ARWR was trading around $2.22 when we alerted readers in June of this year, and the stock has climbed over 268 percent in just 4.5 months based on today's closing price.

Arrowhead's lead drug candidate is ARC-520, an RNAi-based compound with a potential to treat chronic hepatitis B virus infection in a fundamentally different manner than current therapies.

Earlier this month, the company announced that it has completed enrollment in a phase 1 clinical trial of ARC-520. With initial data indicating that ARC-520 is generally safe and well tolerated at all six dose levels studied, Arrowhead is planning to initiate a phase 2a pilot efficacy study in chronic HBV patients. A multi-national phase 2b study of ARC-520 is planned for the second half of 2014.

The phase I study remains blinded and follow-up is ongoing. Additional data including pharmacokinetics and relative occurrence rates for adverse events in placebo and ARC-520 treatment groups will be presented when those data become available, according to the company.

Last week, the company closed a private offering of common and convertible preferred stock, raising net proceeds of $60 million.

Biotech stocks can be risky as their fortunes depend on two key events namely clinical trial results and FDA decisions. Nevertheless, the returns can be impressive when the stocks are bought at the right time.

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