The Botanix Pharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX: BOT) share price has returned from its trading halt with a bang on Wednesday.
In morning trade, the clinical stage synthetic cannabinoid company's shares are up 31% to a record high of 19 cents.
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Why is the Botanix share price rocketing higher?
Investors have been fighting to buy Botanix shares this morning following the release of an announcement in relation to its BTX 1801 Phase 2a nasal decolonisation proof of concept study.
According to the release, top-line data from the study shows that two different BTX 1801 formulations (ointment and gel containing synthetic cannabidiol) were safe, well tolerated, and successful at eradicating Staphylococcus aureus (Staph) bacteria from the nose of healthy participants that were nasally colonised with Staph.
The release explains that the primary objectives focused on evaluating safety and tolerability, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of two different candidate formulations of BTX 1801.
Each formulation was applied twice daily for five consecutive days to the inner surface of the nose and compared to respective vehicle or placebo formulations without synthetic cannabidiol.
At day seven, Staph eradication was demonstrated in 76.2% and 68.8% of the participants in the BTX 1801 ointment and gel groups respectively, compared with just 27.8% of participants in the combined vehicle groups.
On day 12, which was seven days after the end of the treatment period, BTX 1801 demonstrated Staph eradication in 38.1% of participants in the ointment group and 25% in the gel group. This compares to 16.7% for the combined vehicle groups.
Why is this important?
The company notes that antibiotic resistance is a significant global challenge in the context of public health. In fact, the UN is forecasting that drug resistant diseases could cause 10 million deaths each year by 2050 and result in an annual economic loss of US$100 trillion if new solutions are not found.
Furthermore, Staph and methicillin-resistant Staph (MRSA) are the leading cause of Surgical Site Infections (SSIs) and approximately 80% of SSIs are caused by the patient infecting themselves from their own nose.
Antibiotics used for nasal decolonisation, such as Bactroban, have seen a significant increase in the development of resistance, with some hospitals restricting its use after recording resistance rates as high as 95%.
This opens the door for new treatments to be developed to tackle these issues. Botanix appears hopeful synthetic cannabidiol could be the answer.
Botanix President and Executive Chairman, Vince Ippolito, commented: "We are very pleased to announce this top-line data that demonstrates synthetic cannabidiol (CBD) is a safe and effective nasal decolonisation agent. Moreover, this is the first time that synthetic CBD has been shown to have clinical utility as an antimicrobial agent in humans."
"These results support continued development of BTX 1801 for the treatment of a variety of infections, in addition to the prevention of post-surgical infections," he added.
