Health Check: It’s sale time as Medadvisor mulls Aussie exit and Althea renounces medicinal cannabis

Medadvisor shares today soared up to 60% after the company said it had found a tentative buyer for its Australian pharmacy business.

It's all smiles as Medadvisor and Althea enter sales agreements for non-core assets. Pic via Getty

• Medadvisor shares soar up to 60% after the company flags the sale of its Australian business

• Pot stock Althea sees better fortunes in the THC-infused beverage sector

• Clinuvel’s phase III vitiligo trial is fully recruited

With operations in Australia and the US, ‘patient engagement’ platform Medadvisor (ASX:MDR) has long believed the value of the former has not been reflected in the company’s valuation.

Last November the company launched a strategic review to test this theory and it’s now bearing fruit.

Today, Medadvisor disclosed it had received a non-binding letter of intent from a “prominent multinational listed software business” interested in buying the Australian arm.

While the cash offer remains commercial in confidence, the board believes the offer is “materially” higher than what’s implied in the company’s share price.

Investors agreed, sending the stock up to six cents, or 60%, higher this morning.

The company then requested a trading halt pending a further update on Friday.

Medadvisor’s premise is that despite the billions of dollars spent on developing new drugs, many of them are ineffective for many patients.

Around one-fifth of adults with chronic health conditions don’t fill their prescriptions in the first place.

Of the remainder who do, half of them stop taking the treatment after 90 days.

In the US, Medadvisor conducts education campaigns for pharma companies.

There, the company has been affected by a lull in vaccination rates, which has crimped spending on vaccine drug launches.

Locally, the company operates Medadvisor for Pharmacy, a cloud-based workflow tool for prescription reminders, scheduling flu shots and the like.

The company has signed up more than 95% of pharmacies accounting for 3.7 million prescriptions annually.

The Australian business accounted for 20% of Medadvisor’s total December half revenue of $57.1 million, down an overall 24%.

Medadvisor says the Australian business continues to perform strongly, with record revenue of $2.9m in the month of April.

The company cites a timeline of five to seven weeks for a deal to be done.

“We are pleased to have received a compelling offer which validates our view of the significant strategic value of ,” Medadvisor chief Rick Ratliff says.

THC beverages? We’ll drink to that, says Althea

Amid a domestic oversupply of the green stuff, Althea Group (ASX:AGH) has sold its local medical cannabis business following a strategic review.

Instead, Althea will focus on the fast-growing THC-infused beverage market in the US.

THC is the active ingredient in cannabis.

As outlined in a binding term sheet, Althea will sell its pharmaceutical assets to Tasmanian Botanics Pty Ltd for $1 million.

This includes a revenue-sharing arrangement on residual inventory sales.

“The medicinal cannabis landscape in Australia has shifted in recent years, and this transaction represents a thoughtful and strategic response to those changes,” Althea CEO Joshua Fegan says.

Althea’s beverage business operates via its subsidiaries Peak Canada and Peak US.

These arms have established production facilities and own an emulsion tech that ensures “fast-acting, consistent and high-quality THC-infused beverages”.

Given the sale, Althea has withdrawn its full-year guidance of revenue between $26-33 million and underlying earnings of $800,000 to $1.1 million.

No bula! Calmer Co inks a US kava deal

Still on alternative bevvies, The Calmer Co International (ASX:CCO) is tapping in on the proliferation of kava in the US.

There, dedicated bars sell the mildly stimulating/relaxing South Pacific substance as an alternative to alcohol.

Formerly known as Fiji Kava, Calmer has penned a memorandum of understanding with ‘functional beverage’ company Leilo, to provide high-grade kava powders.

Calmer hopes a phase one pilot study in the December quarter will pave the way for a formal long-term supply deal.

Leilo supplies some of the 500 kava bars that have proliferated in the US, with each bar consuming an average 20 to 30 kilograms of the stuff per month.

There’s a Trumpian angle to it all.

“By adding The Calmer Co to our existing roster of top-tier suppliers … we are able to better hedge against supply chain shocks and tariffs,” says Leilo founder and CEO Sol Broady.

The Calmer Co reported March quarter revenue of $1.8 million, down 12% and a $923,000 loss.

Clinuvel hits its skin trial numbers

Skin diseases house Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals (ASX:CUV) has hit its recruitment target of 200 patients for its phase III study, to treat the common condition vitiligo.

The study tests Clinuvel’s drug Scenesse, which is already approved for a rare sun intolerance disorder.

The trial, CUV-105 is across 37 study sites in North America, Africa and Europe, but with 57% of patients enrolled in the US.

Affecting 1-2% of the population, vitiligo is an acquired depigmentation disorder causing loss of melanin producing skin cells.

This leads to disfiguration and “psychosocial distress”.

While vitiligo affects all racial groups, it most affects darker-skinned people.

Patients will receive Scenesse every three weeks for 20 weeks, alongside the standard ultraviolet phototherapy.

For the sake of comparison, some patients receive the phototherapy alone but can opt to take Scenesse post-trial completion.

The study’s primary endpoint is a minimum 50% repigmentation across the total body surface area.

Secondary endpoints include repigmentation on the face, neck and head.

In a sneak peek, the company has released case studies of five patients showing the drug appears to be effective and well tolerated.

Oncosil hits the mark with pancreatic cancer study 

Speaking of trials – or studies, strictly speaking – Oncosil Medical (ASX:OSL) reports that its eponymous targeted radiation therapy comes up trumps against the standard treatment called stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT).

The Royal Adelaide Hospital comparison covered 101 patients treated over eight years.

Of these, 42 received Oncosil plus chemotherapy and 59 were given chemo followed by SBRT.

These patients either had with unresectable (inoperable) or borderline-resectable locally advanced forms of the cancer.

The first analysis directly comparing the two treatments, the study found Oncosil was superior in extending overall survival and progression-free survival.

The study showed a median survival of 22 months for Oncosil, compared with 14 months for SBRT.

Furthermore, 24% of Oncosil patients were 'downstaged' to operable status, compared with 4.7% for SBRT.

The study was investigator led, meaning it was off the hospital’s own bat.

Oncosil is approved for use in 30 jurisdictions, most notably Europe and the UK.

Oncosil chief Nigel Lange says the data provides “further evidence of the efficacy and safety of Oncosil added to standard-of-care chemotherapy.”

Originally published as Health Check: It’s sale time as Medadvisor mulls Aussie exit and Althea renounces medicinal cannabis