Alchemia (ASX: ACL) is a biotechnology company engaged in developing new human therapeutics based on its drug discovery, dry targeting and synthesis technologies. Alchemia and its subsidiaries’ operations are related to the research and development of new human pharmaceuticals.
Alchemia outperforms Australian market, shares rally 18.57%
Alchemia (ASX: ACL) is among the gainers on the ASX today with a 18.57% share price increase to $0.41, with nearly 2.9 million shares changing hands as of 4.19pm (AEDT).
The company outperformed the broader Australian market, which wiped off 19.7 points or 0.5%.
Alchemia updated the market yesterday on the sales performance of its marketed product, generic fondaparinux, which was launched in the U.S. in July 2011 by the company’s worldwide marketing partner Dr Reddy’s Laboratories.
The latest weekly data from US IMS Health shows that Dr Reddy's generic fondaparinux reported prescription market share of 18%. This represents recent sales in excess of $1.4 million per week.
The retail segment of the market (non-hospital) is known to be relatively higher priced and profitable compared with the non-retail (hospital) segment, and Dr Reddy’s has achieved a dollar market share of over 30% in the retail segment.
The dollar value of the retail market for fondaparinux has remained robust at $240 million (MAT) through 2011, maintained by a sharp increase in prescription numbers after the introduction of lower price generics.
Cancer Drug Trial
Early last month Alchemia recruited its first patient in the pivotal Phase III clinical study of its lead cancer drug, HA-Irinotecan.
The 390-patient Phase III study will compare the safety and effectiveness of HA-Irinotecan with the widely used chemotherapy drug irinotecan in a double blind trial in second and third line metastatic colorectal cancer patients.
This pivotal Phase III trial is being conducted at 55 sites in Australia, Eastern and Western Europe.
