It's been a pretty miserable day on the ASX share market this Wednesday. The All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) finished at a heavy loss, closing 1.54% lower. But let's talk about one ASX healthcare share that decidedly bucked the markets with a gain that is almost single-handedly enough to make its shareholders wealthy.
The Zelira Therapeutics Ltd (ASX: ZLD) share price exploded in value today. This ASX healthcare share closed at 94 cents yesterday. But today's session saw the company skyrocket to close at $3.05 a share. That's an eye-watering gain of 224.5%.
Yes, you read that right. Someone with $10,000 worth of Zelira shares yesterday now has more than $30,000 worth today.
So what on earth is going on here that has prompted such a massive change in fortunes for this ASX healthcare share and its investors?
Why did ASX healthcare share Zelira rocket by 220% today?
Well, investors can likely thank a big announcement from the company this morning.
It revealed some very positive results from Zelira's cannabis-based ZLT-L-007 drug. The company has just completed a major clinical trial of ZLT-L-007 and its ability to successfully treat nerve pain.
The results of the trial revealed that ZLT-L-007 achieved significant reductions in pain scores and symptom severity against those delivered by the Pfizer-owned rival drug Lyrica. Zelira points out that Lyrica is a "multi-billion-dollar annual revenue drug".
ZLT-L-007 was also found to "be safe and well tolerated, meeting the primary endpoint for safety with no serious adverse events".
These results have prompted Zelira to "evaluate the further progression of ZLT-L-007 into formal FDA [US Food & Drug Administration] clinical trials".
Here's some of what Zelira's chair Osagie Imasogie said on this exciting news for the company:
As a commercially available pain medicine, Lyrica served as a reliable benchmark to gauge the pain relief efficacy offered by our novel candidate, ZLT-L-007. In addition, Lyrica has historically achieved peak year annual sales of approximately US$5 billion, clearly indicating the market potential for Zelira's pain relief medication that outperformed the level of pain relief from Lyrica. In certain instances, provided up to four times the observed pain relief when compared to Lyrica.
This compelling outcome gives us confidence to evaluate the further progression of ZLT-L-007 into formal FDA clinical trials.
So a very happy day for ASX healthcare share Zelira and its investors. It will be interesting to see where the company goes from here.
