The Noxopharm Ltd (ASX: NOX) share price is on course to end the week on a positive note.
In morning trade, the clinical-stage drug development company's shares are up 3% to 72 cents.
This means the Noxopharm share price now up over 50% since the start of the year.
Why is the Noxopharm share price rising?
Investors have been buying Noxopharm shares following the release of an announcement this morning.
According to the release, headline data from the phase 3 VISION trial was released overnight. This trial looked at the effectiveness of Lu-PSMA-617 as a treatment for late-stage prostate cancer. Lu-PSMA-617 is owned by Novartis.
The release explains that Lu-PSMA-617 could become an important new treatment for late-stage prostate cancer on the basis of Phase 3 clinical trial data released overnight.
Why is this good news for Noxopharm?
This is potentially very good news for Noxopharm because its recent LuPIN trial data shows an even stronger survival outcome when Lu-PSMA-617 is combined with its own Veyonda product.
Noxopharm's CEO and Managing Director, Dr Graham Kelly, said: "This result is positive news for Noxopharm for two reasons."
"The first is that it confirms that Veyonda in combination with Lu-PSMA-617 provides a considerable survival advantage over Lu-PSMA-617 alone. The LuPIN mOS outcome of 19.7 months still remains the best survival outcome of any drug approved for use in men with endstage prostate cancer including enzalutamide, abiraterone, docetaxel, cabazitaxel, and now Lu-PSMA-617."
"The second is that having Lu-PSMA-617 likely to come to market as a 3rd line therapy provides a clear development pathway now for Veyonda to come to market itself, with a distinct opportunity to make the Veyonda/Lu-PSMA-617 combination a new standard of care for endstage prostate cancer," he concluded.
This sentiment was echoed by Noxopharm Chief Medical Officer, Dr Gisela Mautner.
Dr Mautner said: "Noxopharm welcomes this news because it has a major interest in seeing Lu-PSMA-617 come to market and become a standard of care for prostate cancer. The Company believes that the LuPIN study has demonstrated that Veyonda has the ability to enhance the efficacy of Lu-PSMA-617, with a greater survival benefit from the combination than Lu-PSMA-617 alone. This well-tolerated combination therapy should increase the attractiveness of radioligand therapy for men with late-stage prostate cancer even more."
