SELLAS Widens Loss as Cash Pile Tops $138 Million
SELLAS Life Sciences Group reported a second-quarter net loss of $9.6 million even as cash climbed to $138.3 million, extending a five-quarter run of capital raises ahead of a still-pending REGAL trial readout.
SELLAS Life Sciences Group (SLS) reported a wider second-quarter net loss on Aug. 11, as rising research spending ahead of a potential regulatory filing outpaced the biopharmaceutical company's revenue base. Net loss for the quarter reached $9.6 million, or $0.05 a share, compared with $6.6 million, or $0.07 a share, a year earlier.
The loss widened even as the per-share figure narrowed, a gap explained by dilution rather than improved economics. Weighted-average shares outstanding roughly doubled to about 189.2 million from 98.6 million a year earlier, the result of warrant exercises and sales under an at-the-market facility that have funded the company's operations. Cash and cash equivalents rose to $138.3 million, extending a sequential climb from $25.3 million in the second quarter of 2024 through $44.3 million, $71.8 million and $107.1 million in the three quarters that followed.
Spending accelerated on both sides of the income statement. Research and development expenses rose to $6.3 million from $3.9 million a year earlier, up about 62%, driven by manufacturing costs, clinical and regulatory consulting, and trial expenses tied to a potential biologics license application filing for GPS, the company's cancer vaccine candidate. General and administrative costs rose to $4.4 million from $3.0 million, up about 45%, on higher professional fees and stock-based compensation. For the first half of 2025, R&D spending totaled $11.4 million against $7.1 million a year earlier, while G&A reached $8.5 million versus $5.9 million.
The spending also accelerated quarter over quarter, with R&D expenses climbing to $6.3 million from $5.1 million in the first quarter, a roughly 24% sequential increase tied to trial preparation costs.
The REGAL trial, evaluating GPS in acute myeloid leukemia, remained the company's central near-term catalyst but continued to run behind its original timeline. Event counts progressed from 72 as of Dec. 26, 2024, to 78 as of May 11, 2025, and the trial was approaching the 80-event threshold required to trigger a final analysis. That threshold had originally been expected to be reached by year-end 2024; the Aug. 11 release offered no specific date for when the final analysis would begin.
Separately, the company's SLS009 program, an FDA-recommended 80-patient Phase 2 trial in frontline AML, had enrolled 28 of 80 patients as of the anchor release. The company maintained its guidance for topline data in the fourth quarter of 2025, unchanged from prior quarters even as enrollment progressed more slowly than the trial's original timeline anticipated first-patient dosing by March 2025.
The company also disclosed new preclinical data showing SLS009 activity as a single agent in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma resistant to RAS inhibitors, and said it was preparing clinical development plans with a top-tier academic institution. The indication had not appeared in any prior-quarter release.
The capital-raising activity that has built the company's cash position showed signs of slowing. Warrant-exercise proceeds, a metric the company had disclosed in each of the prior several quarters, fell from $54.6 million in September and October 2024 to $42.6 million in the first quarter of 2025 and $7.5 million early in the second quarter, before the company omitted the figure entirely from its Aug. 11 release.