AVEO Pharmaceuticals (AVEO) Q4 Earnings: What’s In Store?

AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (AVEO – Free Report) is expected to report fourth-quarter 2016 results this month. The company has an impressive track record for the last four reported quarters having beaten estimates on three occasions and meeting expectations in one with an average positive surprise of 17.56%.

In the last reported quarter, AVEO posted a positive surprise of 41.6%. Let’s see how things are shaping up for this quarter.

AVEO’s share price movement shows that the stock has underperformed the Zacks classified Medical-Biomedical/Genetics industry in the past one year. In fact, AVEO has lost a substantial 14.8% during this period, in comparison to a drop of 2.6% for the industry.

Factors at Play

AVEO, a development-stage biopharmaceutical company, is focused on the development of treatments for cancer and other areas of unmet medical need. The company has an interesting pipeline with the most advanced candidate being tivozanib.

Tivozanib is currently under review in the EU for the first-line treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The regulatory application was submitted by AVEO’s partner, EUSA Pharma. A final response on the approval status of the candidate is expected in the first half of 2017.

In Aug 2016, AVEO initiated a phase I/II study (TiNivo) on tivozanib, in combination with Bristol-Myers’ (BMY – Free Report) Opdivo (an immune checkpoint PD-1 inhibitor), for the treatment of advanced RCC. The phase I study will evaluate tivozanib in combination with Opdivo at escalating doses in patients with advanced RCC, and will be followed by an expansion phase II cohort at the established combination dose. Initial safety results from the phase I portion of the TiNivo study should be out in the first half of 2017.

The company recently announced clinical and regulatory updates for tivozanib. The company announced that the randomized, controlled, multi-center, open-label phase III trial, TIVO-3, is progressing substantially ahead of schedule. The trial is comparing tivozanib to Nexavar in subjects with refractory advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC).Hence, the company now expects TIVO-3 to complete enrollment in Jun 2017, ahead of its prior guidance of Aug 2017.