Chair’s Investor Update
Thursday July 28, 2022
Thursday July 28, 2022
Destiny Pharma plc (AIM: DEST), a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on the development of novel products to prevent life-threatening infections, today announces an Investor Update from its Chair, Nick Rodgers.
“I am delighted with the progress we are making despite a difficult stock market, particularly in the life sciences sector, and the challenging economic background. At the fundraising in March, we undertook to complete two key tasks in 2022 – clarification of the XF-73 Nasal Phase 3 trial plan to prevent post-surgical Staphylococcus aureus infections with the US FDA and a partnering deal for our NTCD-M3 Clostridioides difficile Infections (CDI) prevention therapy. We have progressed both tasks and look forward to further successes during the remainder of this year.
Clarification has been received from the FDA on our XF-73 Nasal Phase 3 clinical trial plans. The details of this encouraging feedback were recently announced on 19th July. Additionally, we continue to progress partnering discussions on NTCD-M3 with the aim of announcing a deal before year end.
All the clinical data and competitor analyses we have reviewed and the market research we have undertaken gives us great confidence that both XF-73 and NTCD-M3, when approved by regulators, will deliver significant patient benefits and clear cost savings to hospitals and payers by reducing the incidence and expense of treating these life-threatening infections. Moreover, both have reported excellent Phase 2 clinical and safety data and show robust commercial models with the potential to generate over one US$ billion in peak sales.
I am particularly pleased that, within two years, we have been able to advance NTCD-M3 from its acquisition in November 2020 and develop the package through our expert regulatory, clinical and manufacturing efforts and are now close to delivering a partnering deal. This is in line with the Company’s stated strategy of seeking partners to help co-fund the required Phase 3 development of our lead assets and lead the commercialization.
While our focus remains on our two Phase 3 products we have sought to advance other aspects of our pipeline. Recently, we secured funding from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and also started a new research project targeted at Oral Mucositis. Our China partner, China Medical Systems, is carrying out pre-clinical work on their own XF-73 Dermal programme and SPOR-COV, our collaboration with SporeGen to develop a novel nasal spray to prevent viral respiratory infections, including COVID-19 and influenza, is in an exciting stage having almost completed the grant funded work.
I am extremely positive on the future of Destiny Pharma and I believe that our products can have a major impact in reducing infections worldwide and reduce healthcare costs. Our commitment to infection prevention is more relevant than ever and we have a very large opportunity to create significant value for our stakeholders including patients, healthcare systems and payers.”
Nick Rodgers
Chair