Short Term Trading Week Starting: 26 August, page-23

IHL - Greenfund recommends as in top 3 Cannabis plays

Like any biotech company, cannabis biotechs offer the opportunity for massive gains.

Many investors love the world of biotech, as often they can return tremendously solid short term gains. It’s hard to beat the world of biotech investing when it comes to sheer excitement. They are constantly releasing results such as positive clinical trial endpoints, and game-changing licensing deals that can really drive the share price.

In short, although these early-stage biotechs are still very risky, they really do offer significant upside for investors willing to take the risk.

To try and reduce the risks, we have chosen three that we think to have a massive shot at success. So sit back, strap in and get ready for the biotech boom.

Disclaimer: Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

IHL

Impression Healthcare (ASX:IHL) started life as a manufacturer and supplier of custom-fit mouthguards and other dental equipment. The company now operates essentially two business units

The Oral devices business unit continues to show strong growth across its product range, which includes sports mouthguards that offer better protection to the teeth, and reduced impact from a concussion. They also manufacture and distribute sophisticated devices to combat sleep apnoea, snoring and bruxism.

The other business unit is a rapidly expanding Medicinal cannabis business with four unique clinical trials in partnership with Swinburne University of Technology, that are complementary to the issues the above-mentioned oral devices are trying to treat.

IHL’s cannabinoid drug discovery brand Incannex Pharmaceuticals is a collaboration with an EU-based CBD drug design company, Linnea SA. Linnea will provide the product for the base CBD materials that will underpin the four novel formulations that are currently being used in the clinical trials.

Through its commercial agreement with Cannvalate, Australia’s largest network of medicinal cannabis prescribers, IHL also has access to Australian licenses to import, export and distribute cannabis products.

They will be conducting phase 2a of their trials to investigate the effect of their cannabis formulation—known as IHL-42X—that seeks to address Obstructive Sleep Apnoea. The trials will be focusing on outcomes, measures of sleep quality, and patient mood to determine the success of the formulation.

The global Sleep Apnoea devices market was valued at US$5.5B in 2017.

“Obstructive Sleep Apnoea Syndrome is one of the biggest unmet disease burdens in the western world for which there is no current, proven pharmacological treatments.

However, if instead of incumbent bully equipment there was a registered medicine which had the potential to reduce the number of apnoeas suffered, this would be an enormous disruption of the sleep device market.”

However, Obstructive Sleep Apnoea is only one of four areas of research, which include Traumatic Brain Injury/Concussion, Periodontitis (Gum Disease) and Temporomandibular Joint Disorder. In the next quarter, Impression’s management expects to commence a clinical trial that will investigate the use of CBD for the treatment of concussion and traumatic brain injuries in sportspeople.

To support and strengthen the commercial opportunities associated with this trial, Impression Healthcare also recently announced an official supplier and concussion research partnership agreement with MMA sports league company, ONE Championship, one of the largest and fastest-growing sporting bodies in the world.

ONE Championship—which has positioned itself as a competitor to the UFC—is the largest global sports media property in Asian history, with a global broadcast reach of 2.6 billion potential viewers over more than 140 different countries.

This gives IHL access to the real-world scenarios associated with contact-sport concussion research. Notably, one of the world’s largest cannabis companies, Aurora Cannabis, has done a similar deal with the UFC. We believe this channel holds great commercial opportunity for Impression.

In breaking news in August, Impression Healthcare also appointed internationally recognised key opinion leader in cannabinoid medicines, Dr Sud Agarwal, as the company’s Chief Medical Officer and a Non-Executive Director.

The appointment adds significant medical, scientific and cannabis-related expertise to the company’s senior management team, and will aid in Impression Healthcare’s current and future research.

We are very favourable of this move, as it brings both experience and gravitas to the IHL offering, and lays a solid foundation for meaningful and commercial clinical trials. Another Australian biotech to have on your radar. We have a position and remain very bullish.