Starpharma stocks rise on positive cancer trial results

Starpharma Holdings (ASX:SPL) has reported some encouraging results from a trial of its dendrimer-docetaxel formulation as a breast cancer treatment.

The preclinical study, in a breast cancer xenograft in mice, indicates that docetaxel produced applying Starpharma's dendrimer formulation can be significantly more efficacious than docetaxel alone.

Docetaxel is a leading chemotherapy drug used to treat solid tumours including breast, lung and prostate.

The results show that 60% of the mice treated with dendrimer-docetaxel had no evidence of tumour regrowth after 94 days, compared to the mice in the docetaxel group, all of which showed signs of tumour regrowth or recurrence.

Starpharma announced it believes the improved performance to be down to the dendrimer-docetaxel formulation's longer circulating half-life.

Starpharma's (ASX:SPL) share price grew 12.4% on Wednesday to $1.360 after the announcement was made – its biggest one-day gain this year.

The results follow an earlier trial demonstrating that Starpharma's formulation shows improved water solubility. This indicates that docetaxel drugs could be tweaked to remove several formulation components that are believed to cause severe allergic reactions.

Starpharma has revealed it now plans to conduct several additional preclinical trials of the formulation, before proceeding to clinical studies.

Starpharma is also currently involved in phase II trials of its VivaGel dendrimer gel as a treatment for bacterial vaginosis.

In November last year, the company raised $32 million through a share placement to help fund this trial, as well as other commercialisation activities.