Check up: Diarrhoea and the FDA are lifting share prices

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Here’s our fortnightly wrap of all the news driving ASX health stocks.

Of the ASX’s 134-odd small cap health stocks and of those which were trading on Wednesday, 32 were in positive territory over the last fortnight, 10 were flat and 82 saw their share prices fall.

It was back to the old volatile up one day, down the next stock market game this fortnight.

COVID-19 began digging deeper into the US, with most states but particularly Florida blaming the rise on increased testing and young people being too reckless.

Meanwhile, Australia woke up to outbreaks in Victoria spreading from Melbourne’s moneyed south-east to hipster hotspots in the north and beyond.

So it’s been a rough two weeks for ASX health stocks, which were adored in April and spurned for something more exciting (like super risky travel companies) in May.

Diarrhoea company Immuron (ASX:IMC) smashed it over the last two weeks when it said its US military partner, the Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC), planned to file an investigational new drug (IND) application later this year to develop and clinically evaluate a new drug against campylobacter and ETEC (E-Coli).

They’re planning to launch phase-two clinical studies during the first half of 2021.

A week later the company said it had signed on CSIRO to help with the research.

BPH Energy (ASX:BPH), in addition to an oil and gas project, also owns some medical device IP: 16 per cent of a company that is trying to commercialise a brain function monitor.

That brain anaesthesia response monitor, or BARM as the company calls it, was locked into a licensing deal with Philips Healthcare North America which will let the BARM owners hook into the latter’s monitoring software.

The owner of BARM also made an application to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to say its device is safe, works, and is substantially similar to other devices on the market, which means it won’t have to go through quite the same extended approval process as a brand new device.

Race Oncology (ASX:RAC) capped off a rise from 6c in mid-June last year to 49c after demonstrating the cancer-fighting power of its drug Bisantrene.

In a small phase-two trial of 10 patients with the rare bone cancer called acute myeloid leukemia, 40 per cent showed an objective clinical response. Three patients achieved a partial remission and one achieved a complete remission.

Zoono (ASX:ZNO) shot up again, but this time it wasn’t because of hand sanitiser (even though Victorians are hitting the supermarkets again).

The company’s epic rise since January, when it became one of the first movers in the sanitation game, has culminated in its inclusion in the S&P All Ordinaries index.

The All Ordinaries index is the top 500 companies on the ASX by market cap. Normally it’s only adjusted once a year in March, but the massive volatility triggered by the pandemic that month meant rebalancing happened this quarter instead.

Other health stocks to have ‘made it’ into the list include PYC Therapeutics (ASX:PYC), Resapp (ASX:RAP), Somnomed (ASX:SOM), and Atomo Diagnostics (ASX:AT1).

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