Health Check: Biotechs obey the Three Commandments of life sciences

Whittled down from ten due to Trump-like negotiation, the Three Commandments of Life Sciences include ‘never waste a decent trial result’.

Biotechs are living by the golden rules pertaining to clinical trials and capital management. Pic via Getty

• Anatara has taken a different tack post-trial results, while Chimeric is raising funds and Imugene proposes a share consolidation

• Heramed falls victim to US healthcare funding cuts

• D-Day looms for Mayne Pharma holders – or will there be a twist?

Biotechs are heeding the Three Commandments of Life Sciences, as evidenced by ASX announcements over the last few days.

Why have only three emerged from the Mount?

Inspired by Donald Trump’s famed negotiating skills and the supermarkets’ shrinkflation practices, we managed to whittle them down from ten – and got adultery removed for good measure.

Anatara cuts the pineapple in other ways

Commandment One: when a clinical trial faileth, do not throweth in the towel prematurely.

In the case of Anatara Lifesciences (ASX:ANR), the company dipped out with a phase II trial testing its drug candidate – Garp – on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients.

Garp, as in Gastrointestinal ReProgramming, contains a form of bromelain, an enzyme found in pineapple stems of all things.

Enlisting 78 volunteers, the study failed to meet the primary endpoint of a meaningful improvement in IBS symptoms, compared to placebo.

This was despite a 40% “sustained and consistent” improvement, as measured by the IBS symptom scoring system.

The gist is that while there was an “apparent trend of pain and distension relief”, the more subjective measures did not show a clear pattern of improvement and this affected the overall score.

For example, questions included  "how dissatisfied are you with your bowel functioning the past 10 days?"

The answers “appeared to confound the result, presumably because the underlying disease is still present with a level of symptomatology”.

Anatara is continuing its anti-obesity pre-clinical studies, which are expected to take about six months to complete.

The other lesson here is that in devising  primary endpoints, one should be-eth bloody careful to picketh the right ones.

Chimeric seizes the day

Commandment Two: Don’t wasteth a successful trial result: go-eth to the well.

True to that lore, Chimeric Therapeutics (ASX:CHM) on Friday requested a trading halt “pending an announcement in relation to a capital raising”.

The shares are frozen until tomorrow, or possibly today if the news come through.

On Thursday Chimeric shares soared 60%, or two-thirds of the cents after the company said two out of three evaluable patients in its phase IIb trial had achieved a complete response.

A complete response means remission or – in layman’s terms – a cure.

The third patient had “achieved stable disease, whereby the cancer is neither increasing nor decreasing in extent or severity”.

The study tested Chimeric’s natural killer (NK) cells, agents in the blood stream with heightened cancer busting powers.

Chimeric’s candidate, CHM-0201 was administered alongside standard-of-care chemotherapy patients to the for acute myeloid leukemia.

The three patients are the first to be targeted of 20 subjects, with 12 enrolled as of December.

The first patient was dosed in June last year.

The three patients were ineligible for transplantation and had not been previously treated.

Honey – we shrunk the share base

Commandment Three: when one’s share price plummeteth, one should seeketh to consolidate one’s  shares.

Imugene (ASX:IMU) proposes a share consolidation to reduce its circa 7.46 billion shares on issue by a factor of 34, subject to investor approval at an EGM.

Imugene shares have fallen more than 70% over the last two years – and lost close to 10% this morning.

In theory, the shares would be worth 68 cents a share post-consolidation.

Apart from the ‘vibe’ of a company no longer being in 'penny dreadful' territory, share consolidations don’t change anything fundamentally.

Heramed loses US hospital partner

HeraMED (ASX:HMD) has fallen victim to Trumpian public healthcare funding cuts, with hospital partner Broward Health ceasing use of the company’s digital foetal monitoring tool Heracare.

Heramed says Broward believed that Heracare worked quite well, including reducing pre-term births significantly.

But the First, Second and Third Commandment of US healthcare is that economic imperatives come before clinical ones.

As a Medicaid ‘safety net’ hospital, Broward took up Heracare courtesy of a state grant. As of April 1 this year, federal allotments to the states to fund such services have been reduced by US$8 billion annually.

Heramed has appointed a US healthcare commercialisation firm, Aspire Health Innovations, to further its US growth.

The company also is in commercial discussions with potential partners “in other markets with stable healthcare policy environments.”

Vitura pots another one

Medical cannabis intermediary Vitura Health (ASX:VIT) has added another chain of clinics to its range of outlets, albeit indirectly.

Vitura’s 50% joint venture Flora has acquired the digital platform Heyday Medical, “one of Australia’s most respected medicinal cannabis clinics”.

Established in 2020, the chain claims to have services more than more than 5000 patients.

The deal involves Flora paying $350,000 in cash, plus a 15% stake in Flora post-deal, the value of which has not been quantified.

Vitura owns the Canview marketplace, Doctors on Demand telehealth business, CDA Clinics (medical cannabis telehealth) and a the clinic chain Candor Medical.

Last November Flora acquired the Releaf Group, which operates telehealth and physical clinics.

Mayne and Island shares have a rest

Mayne Pharma (ASX:MYX) shares are in trading halt until Wednesday, pending news of a “material announcement” pertaining to US dermatological group Cosette’s $7.40 a share cash takeover offer.

Last Thursday, Mayne issued an independent report opining the offer was ‘fair and reasonable’, with an assessed value of $6.61 to $7.50 per share.

Barring any surprise, Mayne holders will meet on June 18 to approve the scheme of arrangement.

Meanwhile, Island Pharmaceuticals (ASX:ILA) shares are on trading halt pending a capital raising.

The developer of both a treatment and prophylactic for dengue fever, Island had cash of $4.8 million as of the end of March.

At Stockhead, we tell it as it is. While Island Pharmaceuticals is a Stockhead advertiser, the company did not sponsor this article

Originally published as Health Check: Biotechs obey the Three Commandments of life sciences