The Australian share market is rebounding nicely on Thursday following a solid session on Wall Street overnight.
Two ASX 200 shares that are contributing are listed below. Here's why they are pushing higher today:
Neuren Pharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX: NEU)
The Neuren share price is up 2.5% to $13.02. Investors have been buying this pharmaceutical company's shares after it revealed that its partner, Acadia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ACAD), has received Health Canada approval for Daybue (trofinetide) for the treatment of Rett syndrome in adult and pediatric patients two years of age and older under the Priority Review process.
The ASX 200 share notes that this makes Daybue the first and only drug approved in Canada for the treatment of Rett syndrome.
Canada is included as part of the North America region under Neuren's agreement with Acadia. This means that potential sales in the country will be added to its US sales when calculating Neuren's royalties and sales milestone payments.
Neuren's CEO, Jon Pilcher, commented:
We are excited to see this first approval outside the United States, which is a significant milestone in the ongoing program to expand access to DAYBUE.
Neuren shares are now up 18% since this time last year.
Nextdc Ltd (ASX: NXT)
The NextDC share price is up 0.7% to $17.51. This follows news that the data centre operator has signed an agreement to purchase a new data centre site, Sydney S7.
The S7 site is located in Eastern Creek, approximately 45 kilometres west of Sydney's Central Business District and approximately 8 kilometres from its existing S4 site in Horsley Park, which is currently in planning. Management believes both sites represent a significant expansion opportunity in the Western Sydney Availability Zone.
In respect to S7, it notes that the 258,000sqm of developable land is in close proximity to a major electricity substation, as well as telecommunications, utilities, and associated public infrastructure.
S7 is expected to accommodate a data centre facility capable of approximately 550MW of capacity. This is huge, to say the least. As a comparison, NextDC's total contracted utilisation in FY 2024 was 172.6MW.
Though, this has come at a significant cost. NextDC notes that the purchase price of the S7 site is approximately $353 million. Subject to satisfaction of the conditions in the agreement, the ASX 200 share will progressively settle on the S7 land parcels across FY 2025. However, it will not attribute the S7 property holding costs within its FY 2025 underlying EBITDA guidance due to the uncertainty over the timing and quantum of such costs.
As a result, the company's FY 2025 capital expenditure guidance remains unchanged in the range of $1,300 million to $1,500 million.
NextDC's shares are up 43% over the past 12 months.
