The Starpharma Holdings Limited (ASX: SPL) share price is pushing higher on Tuesday morning.
At one stage today, the dendrimer products developer's shares were up as much as 6% to $1.98.
At the time of writing, Starpharma share price has eased back but remains 1% higher at $1.89.
Why is the Starpharma share price pushing higher?
The catalyst for this gain has been the release of a positive announcement this morning relating to its second radiopharmaceutical candidate, DEP HER2-lutetium.
According to the release, DEP HER2-lutetium achieved potent and durable anticancer activity in a human breast cancer model. The release advises that it demonstrated complete tumour regression, outperforming Herceptin (trastuzumab) labelled with lutetium.
The study was conducted at University of Queensland's Centre for Advanced Imaging. It evaluated the anticancer activity of different doses of DEP HER2-lutetium and DEP lutetium. Treatment with either a 1×15 MBq or 2×9 MBq dose of DEP HER2-lutetium showed a potent anti-tumour effect, resulting in complete tumour regression in the BT474 human breast cancer model.
Positively, all dose regimens of DEP HER2- lutetium were extremely well tolerated. Furthermore, there were no deaths due to treatment or as a result of tumour growth in any treatment group.
What now?
Management notes that radiotheranostics is a rapidly developing area of cancer treatment and diagnosis, which has recently generated several high-value deals. Recent deals include the acquisition of Endocyte by Novartis for US$2.1 billion and the acquisition of former ASX listed company Sirtex by CDH Genetech for ~A$1.9 billion.
Sales in the category are estimated to grow to $12 billion to $15 billion by 2030.
Starpharma's CEO, Dr Jackie Fairley, commented: "We and our specialist radiotheranostics clinical advisers are very excited by these latest data. Starpharma now has multiple potential DEP products in the radiopharmaceuticals and radiodiagnostic area. We are delighted to continue working with Professor Kristofer Thurecht at the University of Queensland's Centre for Advanced Imaging, as well as building strong relationships with radionuclide specialists and clinicians."
