Ferret's Stock to Watch: APOLLO LIFE SCIENCES LIMITED 08:43, Tuesday, 16 May 2006
BIOTECH COMPANY SUPPORTED BY BIG MACQUARIE BANK NAME
Sydney - Tuesday - May 16: (RWE Aust Business News) ***************************************************
OVERVIEW ********
Weakness in the shares of biopharmaceutical firm Apollo Life Sciences Ltd (ASX:AOP) seems simply to be market forces at work after the company signalled that the escrow period attaching to 3,672,000 options at 50c will expire on May 20.
Apollo shares were travelling around 68c early in March after the market reacted to news that the company had placed four million shares (worth $2 million) at 50c each to Bill Moss, head of Macquarie Bank's banking and property group.
Mr Moss was also appointed an independent non-executive director of Apollo at the same time.
He is a director of over 40 Macquarie companies and has oversight of Macquarie's property funds businesses, which manage globally in excess of $23 billion of property-related assets and a listed market capitalisation of over $13 billion.
Mr Moss will also be issued 1.2 million options at a strike price of 65c.
But the Macquarie aura didn't seem to last and the shares are back in the doldrums, waiting for a research breakthrough in developing and commercialising human proteins for treatment of disease and ageing.
John Priest, Apollo's chairman and chief executive officer, said Mr Moss's multi-industry and international commercial expertise will be invaluable to Apollo.
"His experience in new venture development will help us ensure we are well prepared to introduce new products to global markets."
Mr Moss said he is excited to be joining the Apollo board as the company prepares to enter new markets and continues its research and development into therapeutic products.
"I look forward to contributing to the growth of the Apollo business and to its becoming an outstanding Australian specialty pharmaceutical and healthcare company," he declared.
SHARE PRICE MOVEMENTS *********************
Shares of Apollo sold last at 47c. Rolling for the year was $1.03 and low 40c. The company has 64.3 million shares in issue with a market cap of $30.5 million.
In its last progress statement to the ASX on March 22, Apollo Life Sciences reported that the Phase 1b study of its topical psoriasis cream ALS-00T2-0501 has demonstrated safety and tolerability in patients with mild to moderate plaque type psoriasis using single and multiple applications, and in healthy people using a single application.
The 20-patient, single centre, sequential study was conducted by CMAX at Royal Adelaide Hospital and divided into three stages.
In the first two open stages of the trial, patients with mild to moderate chronic plaque-type psoriasis and healthy subjects received a single application of the cream.
About 80 per cent of people who develop psoriasis have plaque psoriasis.
The third stage was a randomised, double-blind placebo controlled study.
Nine single dose applications were made every second day over a 21-day period to patients with psoriasis.
Apollo said the results appeared to show improvement in severity in some subjects, although the trial was primarily designed to demonstrate safety and tolerability, and not sufficiently large to provide statistically significant results about efficacy.
This will be directly tested in the next set of trials (Phase II).
Mr Priest said the company is very pleased that the Phase 1b study had demonstrated that ALS-00T2-0501 is safe and tolerable.
"This topical cream is being developed for mild to moderate psoriasis patients, and we believe this convenient, easy to use application will offer significant health and quality of life benefits compared with existing injectable treatments," he added.
About three per cent of the world's population is affected by psoriasis, which involves an over-reaction of the immune system resulting in severely inflamed skin, and can seriously affect health and quality of life.
Apollo's topical treatment is based on a human cell-expressed BTM recombinant protein, a TNF blocker, that has been developed and funded by Apollo.
TNF is a protein involved in inflammation of skin.
Apollo believes its topical TNF blocker for psoriasis will have advantages over existing injection-based treatments, which can suppress the immune system.
The trial was conducted in accordance with the International Conference on Harmonisation (ICH) guidelines for good clinical practice (GCP).
There were no serious adverse events in any subjects or events causing withdrawal from the study.
BACKGROUND **********
Apollo Life Sciences is a relative latecomer to the Australian Stock Exchange, being listed on June 29, 2005.
It is an Australia-based biopharmaceutical company which is creating, manufacturing and marketing next-generation therapeutics based on natural human proteins to protect and improve human health.
These advanced proteins are used to treat a wide range of disorders associated with disease and ageing.
Apollo's proteins are expressed from human cells and are expected to offer therapeutic advantages in terms of safety and effectiveness because they more naturally mimic proteins in the human body.
The company has generated a unique extensive library of human-expressed proteins that provide a platform for short and longer-term revenue generation.
Apollo is committed to discovering and commercialising human proteins as treatments for disease and ageing.
The company produces a large range of human-expressed proteins and has identified methods of delivering proteins across the blood-brain barrier and skin.
Their resulting structural characteristics are expected to allow them to be better tolerated, work more effectively in the human body and have fewer side effects.
Apollo began working to produce human-expressed proteins for use as therapeutics in September 2002 through awareness of growing demand for more effective treatments for many chronic diseases and age-related disorders and growing research interest in the role protein sugar structures play in therapeutic outcomes.
The company has built on its experience working with human cells to produce natural human proteins.
ENDS
AOP Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
