Nyrada shares in demand

Biotech company off to good start in ASX debut

SYDNEY biotech company Nyrada has made its debut on the ASX in the first float of the year following an $8.5 million oversubscribed initial public offering. Shares of the Noxopharm spin-off reached a high of 30.5 cents yesterday – up 52.5 per cent from its 20 cent IP price – and closed the day at 23.5 cents.

Noxopharm holds a 26.9 per cent shareholding in Nyrada, which was spun off to develop four non-oncology drugs, including a possible treatment for high cholesterol and a drug candidate to reduce brain damage and after a stroke or brain injury.

Nyrada chief executive James Bonnar (pictured) said that investors had been eager to get in during the company’s roadshow.

“It’s quite an easy story to get out and tell. People know a cholesterol-lowering drug has a huge market, and everyone knows somebody who has a stroke or a brain injury,” he said. disability traumatic

Nyrada’s cholesterol-lowering drug candidate works to inhibit a blood protein called PCSK9 that holds low-density cholesterol in place, and is designed to be taken with a traditional statin medication for the 40 per cent of people who fail to adequately respond to drugs such as Lipitor.

A PCSK9 inhibitor is already on the market, but it involves regular injections, while Nyrada’s drug candidate would be taken orally.

Meanwhile, the company’s drug candidate to prevent brain damage builds on research by UNSW Sydney Professor Gary Housley and is designed to limit a condition called excitotoxicity, a secondary cause of brain damage in people who have suffered a brain injury.

“This is entirely Australian research,” Mr Bonnar said of Nyrada’s intellectual property.

But the drug candidates are still a long way from development, with the company hoping to begin a Phase I (safety and toxicity) clinical trial for one of its drugs by the end of 2021.

“No revenue stream is expected in the foreseeable future,” Nyrada’s prospectus warns.

The company is funded for the next two years and is aiming to develop its drug candidates to the point where larger companies will partner with it.

The other drugs it is working on are ones to treat inflammation and pain in peripheral nerves from injuries, and another to treat chronic inflammation that leads to autoimmune diseases.

Global sales of statins annually are $20 billion.