Antti Siltanen has published a new company report on Herantis Pharma.
Herantis released new results from its biomarker analysis. The results relate to the Phase I clinical safety and tolerability study of the HER-096 drug candidate, which included an analysis of biomarkers. According to the results, the candidate shows biological activity in Parkinsonâs patients. In practice, the reported positive results impact the planning of the next research phase and potentially provide leverage in partnership negotiations with a larger pharmaceutical company. In our view, Herantisâs big picture remains unchanged following the results, so we reiterate our target price of 2.5 euros. Due to the rise in share price, the risk-reward ratio has weakened, which is why we are lowering our recommendation to Reduce (prev. Accumulate).
Looking at that webcast starting from 38:20, the CFO is certainly struggling to hold back a smile. I wonder if theyâre just happy that the webinar is coming to an endâŠ
Herantis now has a very substantial dataset at its disposal regarding these biomarkers, and its more detailed analysis will take some time. What I personally paid attention to in that presentation was that the data also showed changes in blood samples (as I recall, this was related to mitochondrial DNA damage, which likely served as a proxy for oxidative stress). Based on the drugâs distribution, it is understandable that it also has effects outside the central nervous system, but now there is biological evidence for that as well.
The structure of HER-096 is based on the active domain of CDNF, which interacts with GRP78. The effect of CDNF itself might be more limited to, for example, neurons, meaning HER-096 could potentially have broader effects than CDNF would. What makes this interesting is that this active domain is conserved between CDNF and MANF. This raises the question: to what extent can HER-096 replicate the effects of MANF in the body? MANF is known to have a protective effect on pancreatic beta cells, meaning that in an optimal scenario, HER-096 could be useful in the treatment of diabetes, for example. But perhaps even more interesting (yet more speculative) is MANFâs link to parabiosis (parabiosis is, by the way, quite a âmad scientistâ experimental setupâŠ), which could point to an even broader potential for HER-096, provided that the GRP78 interaction is sufficient to replicate MANFâs effect. Anyway, these data will likely provide hints regarding these other potential effects of HER-096 once they can be analyzed in sufficient depth.
