The ResApp Health Ltd (ASX: RAP) share price is soaring during early afternoon trade on Thursday. This comes after the digital health company announced a licensing agreement with global pharmaceutical company, Johnson & Johnson.
At the time of writing, ResApp shares are up 11.32% to 5.9 cents a pop, having earlier jumped to 6.5 cents.
ResApp licenses ResAppDx technology
Investors are driving up the ResApp share price following the company's latest update.
According to its release, ResApp has secured a three-year, non-exclusive licensing agreement with Janssen Pharmaceutica NV. The latter is one of the Janssen pharmaceutical companies of Johnson & Johnson.
The deal will see ResApp provide its ResAppDx technology to Janssen in a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) clinical trial.
ResAppDx is a smartphone-based acute respiratory diagnostic test that has been developed to diagnose a range of health issues.
The technology will be used to assess respiratory symptoms of a group of patients with a range of respiratory diseases.
Typically mild and similar to the common cold, RSV symptoms in severe cases can spread to the lower respiratory tract. This causes pneumonia or acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or asthma.
The trial will run across a number of continents including the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia-Pacific.
Janssen will pay for the development and maintenance costs as well as a fee for each ResAppDx test. The clinical trial is expected to commence later this calendar year.
Commenting on the announcement driving the ResApp share price, CEO and managing director Dr Tony Keating said:
Almost 160,000 people die each year worldwide as a consequence of RSV. ResApp Health is proud to be supporting Janssen in further understanding the impact of this disease on individual patients, which may help to inform prevention and treatment strategies.
With this agreement, we are demonstrating that leading global pharmaceutical companies see the value of ResAppDx in a clinical trial setting. While not expected to have a material impact on our operating results at this stage, this contract represents the beginning of our commercial relationship with Janssen and will further build the body of high quality, clinical evidence regarding the use of ResAppDx.
ResApp share price snapshot
Despite today's positive announcement, ResApp shares have failed to take off in 2021, down around 30%. When looking over the past 12 months, the company's shares have fallen more than 34%.
ResApp presides a market capitalisation of roughly $45.5 million.
