• Emyria announced progress on its MDMA (ecstasy) program
  • Imugene gets green light for a Phase 2 Australian clinical trial
  • Beamtree wins US$7m deal

 

Emyria Limited (ASX: EMD) has announced positive progress on its MDMA (also known as ‘ecstasy’) analogue development program, currently being run in partnership with the University of Western Australia (UWA).

Results showed that 16 of 17 novel compounds screened demonstrated no interactions with selected “anti-targets”, or receptors and enzymes known to be involved in unwanted side effects.

These results now bring total count of successfully screened analogues in EMD’s proprietary library to 83 of 85.

A third batch of MDMA analogues are now being prepared for initial screening. Additional preclinical screening is also being planned with a leading contract organisation, who will perform a number of assays to evaluate the solubility, partition coefficients and metabolic stability of each compound.

Emyria is developing a MDMA-like medicine by building up a proprietary library of over 100 unique compounds.

These drugs could potentially be used as the next generation psychedelic assisted therapies for neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease.

 

Meanwhile, Beamtree (ASX:BMT) won a five-year contract worth US$7m or US$1.4m annually with Ampath, a leading provider of pathology services in South Africa.

Under the terms, Beamtree will provide its RippleDown software to automate clinical and administrative process for Ampath’s operations.

The RippleDown platform effectively reduces the time pathologists spend reading routine test results, and improves the quality of data entry to drive financial efficiency.

The partnership with Ampath, which currently works with around 40% of South Africa’s private healthcare sector, follows a successful proof-of-concept pilot that examined how RippleDown can help Ampath laboratories drive the best pathology services.

“RippleDown is the world’s leading platform for automation of human expertise, and is now operating in more than 20 countries,” says Beamtree CEO, Tim Kelsey.

“This key partnership underscores the global opportunity for our world-class technology.”

Emyria and Beamtree share prices today:

 

Imugene gets green light Down Under

Immuno-oncology specialist Imugene (ASX:IMU) has received a Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) approval to commence a Phase 2 clinical trial of its immunotherapy candidate, HER-Vaxx, in Australia.

The nxextHERIZON clinical trial is designed to assess the safety and efficacy of HER-vaxx in combination with chemotherapy or pembrolizumab, to treat tumours that over- express the HER-2/neu receptor.

The study’s primary endpoints are safety and response rate, while secondary endpoints include duration of response, progression free survival, overall survival, and biomarker evaluation.

Imugene CEO Leslie Chong said, “The start of our Australian study is a significant milestone for Imugene and clinicians treating Australians faced with the challenge of HER-2+ gastric cancer.”

 

Imugene share price today: