More tiger in the tank: Analysts reckon Telix shares have much further to go. Pic via Getty Images
Health & Biotech
Analysts reckon Telix Pharmaceuticals (ASX:TLX) has only just started to reach its full potential, with three more cancer-imaging product approvals and launches slated for this year.
On Friday Telix shares soared 15% to record highs after the radiopharmacy giant announced a calendar 2024 net profit of $49.9 million, 860% higher.
As per the company’s January guidance, revenue surged 56% to $783.2 million.
While underlying earnings may have fallen short of expectations, investors were more excited by management’s bullish outlook on organic earnings and revenue growth.
To date, all Telix’s earnings have stemmed from Illucix, the company’s approved isotope imaging agent for prostate cancer.
But US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approvals are expected for Gozellix (another prostate cancer application), Pixclara (brain cancer imaging) and Zircaix (kidney cancer imaging).
The FDA’s Gozellix decision is due on or before March 24 and we will hear about Pixclara by April 26. The Zircaix pronouncement is due in the second half.
In the meantime, the acquisitive Telix’s recent US$230 million purchase of radiopharmacy network RLS Radiopharma this year is expected to bolster revenue by $222 million.
The company has guided to revenue of $1.18-1.23 billion, excluding new product launches, 50-57% higher.
While Bell Potter says underlying earnings actually were below market expectations, the firm has upgraded Telix from a hold to a buy.
The firm also upped its valuation from $21.60 a share to $30.12.
Broker Wilsons maintains an ‘overweight’ call, valuing the stock at $35 – or as much as $59 if everything goes right.
The firm describes 2025 as the “year of the pivotal clinical trial, with catalysts across prostate, kidney and brain cancer.”
While these programs account for less than 20% of the firm’s price target, that’s where most of the upside will come from.
Co-founder and CEO Chris Behrenbruch said 2024 had been “extraordinary” – and evidently 2025 will be even more so.
“We have a deep therapeutic pipeline with multiple assets moving into pivotal trials, and we are building out the infrastructure to ensure we can deliver our products to patients around the world.”
Many biotechs proclaim themselves as laser focused on the one program – but sometimes it sure helps to have a Plan B.
Take Patrys (ASX:PAB) which is using its proprietary deoxymab antibody technology platform (called deoxymab) to treat cancer and other diseases.
The idea is that deoxymab can overcome the blood-brain barrier that protects cells, enter them and slow or stop tumour growth with DNA damage repair.
Last year Patrys focused on bringing its first program, PAT-DX1 to a first-in-human clinical study, but ran into trouble because its manufacturing of the molecule at full scale was not up to scratch.
Luckily the company had been developing a variant, PAT-DX3 which has “very similar biological activity to PAT-DX1 including the ability to target tumours throughout the body and to cross the blood-brain barrier.”
As a larger molecule, PAT-DX-3 can also be used as part of an antibody drug conjugate, which combines chemotherapy with a targeted therapy to avoid damaging healthy cells.
Patrys now intends to take PAT-Dx3 to the clinic as a therapy for inflammatory diseases based on its ability to inhibit Netosis (a process implicated in several inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, including vasculitis).
“While planning is still in progress, at this stage it is believed that such a program may be feasible and that the associated clinical trials have the potential to require less drug material than for cancer indications due to the anticipated dosing regime and shorter time to achieve clinical endpoints,” Patrys says in its half-year report released last on Friday.
“The company has also initiated discussions with several third parties who are working on therapeutics based on the Netosis pathway.”
Patrys lost $1.52 million for the half, with cash on hand of $2.2 million as at the end of December.
Investors in erstwhile Covid hero stock Biotron (ASX:BIT) face an invidious choice: support a share purchase plan at a premium to the current market price, or the company will call in the administrators.
The company is seeking to raise a minimum $500,000 at one cent apiece, aimed at supporting partnering opportunities for its anti-viral compound BIT-225. The company is in animal testing phase for a hepatitis B test.
In the unlikely event of all holders exercising their maximum $30,000 entitlement, the plan would raise a tad over $2.7 million.
“In the event that this minimum subscription amount is not achieved, application monies will be refunded in full and the directors will seek to appoint a voluntary administrator or wind the company up whilst solvent”.
Biotron’s claim to fame was mentioning its compounds could be effective against “coronaviruses”, well before the Wuhan variant did its evil work.
Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals (ASX:PAR) says it is on track to dose its first patient in its pivotal phase III trial for knee osteoarthritis (OA), having obtained ethics approval.
The global, placebo-controlled trial aims to enrol 466 patients.
The subjects will receive injected doses of Paradigm’s pentosan polysulphate sodium, an old drug the company has re-purposed for knee OA.
The trial will dose the first patient in the June quarter at a Victorian site, the first of ten planned national sites.
The Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) is handy because it covers every local site. In some countries, site-by-site approval is required.
Health & Biotech
Health & Biotech
Health & Biotech
Health & Biotech
Mining
Mining
