Our scars tell a story, whether it be grazed knees from the school yard or those mystery scrapes that make you wonder what on earth happened the night before.
More often than not these minor scars give us funny stories, laughs and reminders not to touch hot irons. But for more serious injury following events such as accidents, burns from fire or major surgery, scars can have debilitating physical and mental consequences.
“Scarring can have a devastating and life‐long impact on people who have suffered traumatic injuries,” said CEO of Pharmaxis, Gary Phillips.
Specialists in fibrosis and scarring as a disease mechanism, Pharmaxis is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company with some interesting drugs in their pipeline. One of their drugs which has just completed Phase 1a dosing in healthy volunteers is PXS-6302, a topical cream to reduce scarring using Pharmaxis’ proprietary biotechnology to inhibit the enzymes responsible for scar tissue formation.
With limited pharmacological approaches to skin scarring available, the drug attracted the attention of Professor Fiona Wood AM. Having developed ‘spray-on skin’, commercialised by the now American-based Avita Medical (ASX: AVH), Professor Wood is one of Australia’s most innovative and respected surgeons and researchers in the field of skin scarring.
Professor Wood is leading the world first clinical trials for Pharmaxis with PXS-6302, previously commenting, “It’s exciting for the research team to explore a novel path to reduce scarring and to be moving closer to that goal. Scar-less healing is the vision that has motivated our work over many decades.”
Pharmaxis is gaining momentum with its unique approach of using anti-fibrotic molecules to develop innovative treatments, an approach that has piqued the interest of Karst Peak, a fund manager with investment interests in healthcare, biotech and pharmaceuticals.
Karst Peak was along for the ride with Avita Medical and experienced the success of spray-on skin. In April 2021 the fund manager snagged an 8.90% stake in Pharmaxis. and has since increased that to 11.27%.
“Pharmacological approaches to skin scarring are few and far between so this program is attracting attention from clinicians, industry and market commentators alike,” added Gary Phillips.
Set to report the results from the Phase 1a dosing study in the coming weeks, Pharmaxis can then progress to clinical trials to determine if their topical cream can prevent scar formation – an enviable position for small cap drug developers with a healthy balance sheet to fund ongoing trials. At 30 June the company had $18.7m cash in the bank and an ongoing revenue stream from its approved respiratory products.
For the 12 months ended 30 June 2021, Pharmaxis reported a $2.9m net loss (unaudited) which represented a transformative turnaround on the $13.9m loss from the previous year as the Company approaches profitability to fuel their revolutionary drug trials.
Pharmaxis welcomes investors to register for updates on their latest developments and industry research by joining their mailing list here.
*Owners of this website are PXS shareholders
Samantha Freidin is a business journalist at Emerald Financial whilst also completing a Masters of Marketing and Digital Communications at Monash University.
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