The Race Oncology Ltd (ASX: RAC) share price is struggling in early-morning trade despite the company announcing the initiation of an extramedullary AML preclinical study. At the time of writing, the specialty pharmaceutical company's shares are trading flat at $3.84 after falling by around 2% in earlier trade.
Image source: Getty Images
What did Race announce?
Investors appear unfazed by the company's latest announcement, leaving the Race share price currently unchanged.
According to this morning's release, Race has entered into a collaborative preclinical research program with The University of Newcastle. This partnership agreement aims to support the use of Bisantrene in the treatment of extramedullary acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).
Extramedullary AML is considered to be a rare and serious illness with about a 25% survival rate over a 5-year term. The life-threatening disease occurs when the leukaemia spreads from the bone marrow and forms solid tumours in tissues such as the skin, breast, kidney, brain, or other organs.
Race noted that a prospective positron imaging trial conducted in 2020 identified up to 22% of AML patients having extramedullary AML.
Furthermore, a recent phase 2 clinical trial undertaken at the Sheba Medical Centre found Bisantrene to be highly-effective in subjects with extramedullary AML. This is particularly pleasing for the company as there are limited treatment options available.
Once data is collated, Race will seek to move into a phase 2/3 trial of Bisantrene in extramedullary AML patients. It hopes that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will push ahead with a rapid pathway for approval of Bisantrene as an orphan drug.
Race chief scientific officer Dr Daniel Tillett commented:
This is a key project for Race using Associate Professor Verrills' extramedullary AML mouse model. Recent clinical evidence has identified Bisantrene as an effective treatment option for patients with the difficult-to-treat extramedullary form of AML.
We believe that we have identified a low-risk pathway to rapid approval of Bisantrene via this indication that offers significant upside for Race in a crowded clinical space.
About the Race share price
The Race share price has gained over 1,500% in the past 12 months and is up by almost 100% year to date. It's worth noting that the company's shares reached an all-time high of $4.23 earlier this month.
Based on the current share price, Race commands a market capitalisation of around $531 million, with 138.4 million shares outstanding.
