The following is a transcription of the above video, and The Market Herald Canada has edited it for clarity.
Our next company is Medicus Pharma Ltd. (TSXV:MDCX), headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company is a publicly traded clinical stage, multi-strategy holding company focused on investing in and accelerating novel life sciences and biotechnology companies through FDA-approved clinical trials.
Joining us today is Raza Bokhari, executive chairman and CEO of Medicus Pharma, who is here to share all the information about the company and its recent projects.
TMH: For our listeners who may not be aware, can you provide some background about your company?
Bokhari: Indeed. you have done a very nice job in the introduction to describe the company, which is what it is. It is a holding company that commenced trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange in the fall of last year. And also, today it began trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. It is a holding company that is focused on identifying, investing and accelerating clinical stage life sciences companies that have novel disruptive technologies to try to resolve some unmet medical needs.
And we focus on finding these companies and advancing them through FDA-approved clinical trials and positioning them for collaboration with big pharma or commercialization opportunities.
So, we have just gotten off the ground with our lead portfolio company, SkinJect, and we are looking for other assets.
TMH: Is the company intending to fund-raise in 2024.
Bokhari: We indeed are. As a startup biotech company that is focused on one track to invest in clinical trial to take companies through proof of concept and through FDA-approved clinical trial.
And on the other hand, looking for additional assets and companies that it could acquire and put on the pathway of moving them forward to FDA-approved trials. Accessing capital is a perpetual initiative of the company.
So we got off the ground by raising $5.1 million, and we are in the market to raise in increments of $5 (million) to $10 million.
We have a shelf registration pending with the Ontario Security Commission to offer registered securities, but we also have a subscription to raise capital through a private placement.
So a long answer to your question, yes, we have very focused plans to raise additional capital to advance our mission.
TMH: Moving over to SkinJect, one of Medicus’ recent major investments. Can you speak about the treatment and how it’s different from other treatments?
Bokhari: Indeed. SkinJect has this technology, licensing rights and global licensing rights to develop and commercialize use of microarray needles to deliver a known chemo therapeutic agent at the site of the lesion.
This is a Carnegie Mellon technology and Skinject is focused to create a non-invasive way to treat basal cell carcinoma, which is the most common case of the skin around the world and the fastest growing cancer.
But from the days of Adam and Eve there is a only one way to treat it, which is to surgically excise. An effective treatment, but a painful and an expensive and aesthetically not a very promising way to treat.
And the SkinJect objective is to find a way to deliver a known chemo therapeutic agent at the site of the lesion and treat the cancer without surgical intervention.
There are other companies that are trying to also do that. Some companies are focused on using radiation to treat it non-invasively, and there are some topical companies that are trying to build, so you can topically apply and kill. But those are not very effective treatment opportunities.
SkinJect standard has a very promising potential to treat basal cell carcinoma non-invasively. And we are very bullish about it because in our phase I trial, which was a safety and tolerability study, six patients also demonstrated complete clinical response with no relapse or recurrence. So, we feel that we are onto something.
TMH: Diving into that specific skin cancer, what is basal cell carcinoma and what’s the medical market size?
Bokhari: Basal cell carcinoma is a little nodule, and the most common is a nodular type of cancer that comes on exposed skin mostly in Caucasian population or people with less melatonin in their skin. So lighter skin, and it is with age and exposure to sun radiation it emerges. It is a cancer, it’s a slow-growing cancer. If left untreated it is lethal.
But since it is a slow-growing cancer, and it is common across the world, but in the United States alone, there are 5 million new basal cell carcinoma that are diagnosed every year. And it is growing by 5 to 6 per cent every year.
And the market size to treat with surgical excision, which is an excess of $20 billion (in the United States). We feel that by introducing our non-invasive treatment option which could cut this cost by one third, and we have even 10 per cent penetration of this market, we have a company that could generate more than a billion dollars in annual revenue. So a sizeable and a big market and an unmet medical need.
TMH: Medicus recently submitted a Phase II IND clinical protocol to non-invasively treat that condition. Can you tell us about this Phase II trial?
Bokhari: So, after completing a Phase I trial in (March) 2021, the company had filed an IND with the FDA and has submitted the petition to start a Phase II trial. After it became our lead company, we looked at the clinical protocol and filed an amendment to their protocol because we believe that rather than doing a Phase IIa proof of concept trial, which is a small trial, we should actually do a Phase II trial. (It) is a relatively a bigger trial and has a high probability of seeking alignment with the FDA so that we can try to qualify for an accelerated approval for commercialization.
So we filed that amended protocol in the first week of January. We are waiting for final comments from the FDA, and we plan to randomize the first patient hopefully before the end of the first quarter.
TMH: In more recent news, Medicus announced today that it began trading on the Frankfurt Exchange. Can you tell us about the significance of trading on this exchange?
Bokhari: Well, clearly as a company that has come on the scene and the capital market started from Toronto Stock Exchange, which we find to be a great exchange to get eyeballs on our stock in the North American market. But we want to make it accessible and available throughout the Western Hemisphere.
And Frankfurt Exchange is an important exchange to also begin commensurating, which we commenced today. I think the stock ticker is N46 on the Frankfurt Exchange, and that increases the eyeballs and hopefully brings more liquidity and trading volume on our stock. And we are also looking into how to list and also begin to trade on NASDAQ hopefully sometime before the end of this year.
TMH: What else would you tell investors about Medicus’ plans moving into this new year?
Bokhari: Well, we have hit the ground running with the start of the new year. Last week, we were at the sidelines of the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. We were one of the presenting companies at the biotech showcase.
We engaged with, I think we did over 30 meetings in the span of three days with the equity research analysts and investment bankers to increase awareness around our company and around our stock. We were received quite well, especially by the analyst community.
And we have some follow-on meetings set up with them through the remainder of the next few weeks. So that is where you can always say the biotech showcase is an important forum where we had a lot of follow-on interest in our company.
And we also found opportunities to meet with some potential additional companies or assets that we could probably as we advance forward may be able to do some transaction. And we are also strengthening our team.
As we got off the ground, we added a very robust pharma R&D team. We have just brought a former CEO of another dermatology-focused, publicly traded company that is joining the team.
So we feel that we are strengthening our human capital and putting it to use to advance our objectives. And I hope that all of these efforts will bring good results for our shareholders over a sustainable period of time.
You can find Medicus Pharma on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol MDCX or head to its website medicuspharma.com for more information.
Join the discussion: Find out what everybody’s saying about this stock on the Medicus Pharma Ltd. Billboard investor discussion forum, and check out the rest of Stockhouse’s stock forums and message boards.
The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. For full disclaimer information, please click here.
