Transcription of Finance News Network Interview with Noxopharm Limited (ASX:NOX) Managing Director and CEO, Dr Graham KellyCarolyn Herbert: Hello I’m Carolyn Herbert from the Finance News Network and joining me from drug development company Noxopharm Limited
(ASX:NOX), is Managing Director and CEO, Dr Graham Kelly. Graham welcome to FNN.
Dr Graham Kelly: Carolyn thank you, good to be here.
Carolyn Herbert: Can you start by giving us an introduction to Noxopharm?
Dr Graham Kelly: Noxopharm’s a drug development company. It has a particular focus, which is on the problem of drug resistance, which in the case of cancer, means that the tumour cells have learnt how to resist every effort to kill them. And that means that for most cancer patients, they are the start of being resistant to commonly used drugs, or eventually become resistant.
Carolyn Herbert: Now to your listing, how much was raised and where will the funds go?
Dr Graham Kelly: We raised $6 million, we were heavily oversubscribed, but we chose not to take any oversubscriptions. So we start our life with $6 million in the bank and the main purpose of that is to bring our first product, NOX66 into the clinic, as a means of treating this problem of drug resistance.
Carolyn Herbert: What’s your cash position post IPO and your market cap?
Dr Graham Kelly: We’re starting with $6 million and that gives us a market cap, at the point of listing, of $15 million.
Carolyn Herbert: Now to your lead drug candidate NOX66, how does the drug work and how does it compliment other cancer therapies?
Dr Graham Kelly: NOX66 contains an active drug known as Idronoxil. Now Idronoxil has been around for a little while; in fact I was responsible for its discovery and bringing it into the clinic, quite a few years ago. But we’ve struggled for a long time to know how to make it work. We’ve known for a long time that it’s probably the best drug available, to knock out this problem of drug resistance. But as I’ve said, we’ve struggled to learn how to make it work. We now believe we know now how to make it work. So that’s why we’ve raised this money to bring it into the clinic.
Carolyn Herbert: How long has the drug been in development and where did it originate?
Dr Graham Kelly: It came out of work that I was involved with in the university, it was at the University of Sydney Medical School and we discovered this drug, back in the 1990s. And we found out very early that it was very powerful in being able to knock out drug resistance mechanisms, in tumour cells. So that the standard of care drugs like Carboplatin, Paclitaxel for example, to which tumour cells become resistant very quickly, Idronoxil was able to knock that out. So what NOX66 is, is this new exciting and innovative way, to use Idronoxil in a way that we believe it will now work.
Carolyn Herbert: When are you commencing Phase 1 trials?
Dr Graham Kelly: We’re getting underway almost immediately. So that the money we’ve been able to raise will allow us to come into the clinic, and we’ve gone a fair way down the path of making all the necessary arrangements to do that. So before the end of this year, we expect to be in patients with cancers, where we’ll use NOX66 in combination with a drug called Carboplatin.
Carolyn Herbert: So what are you hoping for in terms of results then?
Dr Graham Kelly: We hope of course, that we’re going to be able to prove what we hope, which is that NOX66 will eliminate the drug resistance mechanisms, so that these cancer patients, who currently would not be able to respond to a drug like Carboplatin, will now be able to respond. So we’re hoping that we will find tumour shrinkage in these patients.
Carolyn Herbert: Finally Graham, what’s your long-term ambition for the company?
Dr Graham Kelly: We of course, hope to reward our investors and make money for shareholders who’ve put their faith in us. But more importantly, we believe that we can do something pretty significant for cancer patients, for whom at present there is little hope. So I see Noxopharm as being a potentially major company that will evolve over time.
Carolyn Herbert: Dr Graham Kelly, thanks for the introduction to Noxopharm.
Dr Graham Kelly: Thank you Carolyn, it was a pleasure.
Ends
