Biotron shares leap 29% on hepatitis C Ph IIa positive results; Inovio advances hepatitis vaccines

Australian firm Biotron (ASX: BIT) has received some strong support in the first couple of hours of market open today, with the stock trading as much as 49% higher but closing up 29% at A$0.125 yesterday, after announcing some positive headline trial results from its landmark Phase IIa trial of its lead drug candidate, BIT225 in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected patients.

Preliminary analysis of trial data confirms that BIT225, an orally administered, small-molecule drug, has good antiviral activity against HCV. Patients receiving BIT225 in combination with interferon and ribavirin (the current standard of care for treating HCV) had greater reductions in HCV levels than patients receiving the standard of care treatment alone.

Patients receiving the 400mg dose of BIT225 showed the greatest levels of virus reduction, with an improvement of about 1 log (a measure of the amount of reduction of the virus in the blood of patients) over standard of care treatment at the completion of the dosing phase with BIT225. This is a significant improvement over and above the standard of care treatment in this patient group. Since the completion of the clinical phase of dosing with BIT225 in August, samples have been analysed and the resultant data has been subject to preliminary review by the independent Data Safety Monitoring Committee.