Could Antisense Therapeutics be the next Neuren?Antisense...

Could Antisense Therapeutics be the next Neuren?

Antisense Therapeutics (ASX:ANP) is up 10.5% for the week after releasing its September quarterly update where it noted international recruitment had picked up heading into the December quarter for its lead asset ATL1102 phase IIb clinical trial into Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

As at October 31 2023, all four participating countries in the study were now open to recruitment. To date, 10 patients have been randomised and are receiving study medication, with a number of additional patients currently in screening.

“With all four sites now open, this should now start ramping up,” Wilkie says.

“They were originally guiding to end of December having it fully recruited but I’d say its looking more like January or February.”

In other DMD news, NASDAQ listed drug company Sarepta Therapeutics’ trial results for their drug Eteplirsen to treat DMD, which had received US FDA conditional approval, failed its primary endpoint.

“It went quite well on its secondary endpoints but the stock absolutely plummeted 30 to 40% (on a couple of billion company),” Wilkie says.

He says Sarepta, given the lack of options current on the market, may still get full FDA approval but it may not be as broad as they were originally hoping.

He says in a further positive for ANP, another company in the steroid space which has also been targeting rare diseases called PTC Therapeutics just sold its royalty stream for up to US$1.5 billion.

“The point is, there is a lot of money swishing around which may be looking for a home,” he says.

Wilkie says results for ANP’s Phase IIb are due mid next year.

“We see the Ph IIb results due mid next year will likely be positive based on prior results and will be interesting to see if is any movement on the partnership front prior to result readouts,” he says. “It wouldn’t surprise me if they did.”

“Antisense is one you need to just have just a little in your back pocket. We think it could be the next Neuren Pharmaceuticals (ASX:NEU).