Check up: Maybe next week will be better?

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

Of the ASX’s 133-odd small cap health stocks and of those which were trading on Wednesday, 58 were in positive territory over the last fortnight, eight were flat and 67 saw their share prices fall.

No matter which way you cut it, the last fortnight wasn’t great for markets. The Small Ords was down almost 1 per cent and the broader market was in a similar state.

Another “great rotation”, as pundits have taken to calling the big sector sell downs and buy-ins, did not favour health this time with Biotech Daily’s Top 40 index falling 2.4 per cent when compared to an ASX200 half percentage point lift in July.

However, fortune favours the bold and investors in Aroa Biosurgery (ASX:ARX) would be pleased with their first fortnight on the market, with the stock up 97 per cent from its IPO on July 24.

Aroa is treading a now familiar path with a wound care product that combines a matrix on which cells can regrow with a treatment for diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers.

The company is following in the footsteps of Avita (ASX:AVH) and Polynovo (ASX:PNV) which are both successfully treading hospital wards around the world.

Having already put its product through clinical trials and attained US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approval, it has avoided following the other path trodden by Factor Therapeutics (ASX:FTT), which was trying to cure the same conditions — and failed badly.

However Factor is up on the list as well because its board has finally found something to buy: Brain Biosciences, a commercial-stage veterinary medical technology company in the US which is trading as LONGMILE Veterinary PET Imaging.

Chair Dr Cherrell Hirst, who led the long search for the new face of Factor, will retire at the upcoming AGM and be replaced by Dr David Brookes, a rural medicine expert and ASX biotech director.

The deal is still non-binding and subject to due diligence, but this is the first one the Factor board has felt strongly enough about to release publicly.

It’s subject to demonstrating to LONGMILE shareholders that Factor has at least $3m in cash when the deal is done and sorting out the board composition, among other things.

Health software company Oneview Healthcare (ASX:ONE) rose after saying installed live devices by the end of June were up 30 per cent on a year ago, and the June quarter saw two customers renew and one extend a contract.

Suda Pharmaceutical (ASX:SUD) finally had its day, after the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved several months earlier than unexpected its insomnia mouth spray ZolpiMist.

Suda has been working on ZolpiMist since January 2015 when it licensed zolpidem from Amherst Pharma.

Stem cell play Regeneus (ASX:RGS) has also begun generating some interest among analysts and investors.

It recently updated its negotiating status with Japanese company Kyocera for the osteoarthritis treatment Progenza.

Under the terms of an MOU signed in March, Kyocera has exclusive rights to negotiate a commercial licence for Progenza in Japan. It was supposed to end in July but with talks moving ahead well, they agreed to extend the exclusivity period to the end of August.

And Cogstate (ASX:CGS) moved further ahead with its partnership with Eisai in Japan, which has begun building the brain performance application “Easiit”, a base element of a digital platform for dementia, that will incorporate Cogstate’s NouKNOW assessment by the end of September.

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