BRIM Biotechnology Inc (全福生技) is today to debut its shares on the Emerging Stock Board at an initial offering price of NT$35 per share, the company told an investors’ conference yesterday.
The Taipei Exchange’s Emerging Stock Board is a preparatory board for the nation’s two main bourses.
The company would use the funds raised on the market to conduct phase 3 clinical trials of the BRM421 drug for dry eye disease next year and in 2024, if its meeting with the US Food and Drug Administration upon the conclusion of phase 2 trials goes smoothly this year, it said.
Photo courtesy of BRIM Biotechnology Inc
The company aims to expedite human trials by one year if it has sufficient funds, it said.
Previous human trials for BRM421 showed the drug could stimulate self-renewal of gimbal stem cells and conjunctival goblet cells. That could speed up corneal regeneration and improve the quality of tear, the company said.
“Dry eye disease is a common chronic disease, but has complicated causes,” BRIM chairwoman Jang Hai-shan (簡海珊) said.
“There is no effective treatment yet. More than half of the medicines [for dry eye disease] are anti-inflammatory prescription drugs, with the remaining being artificial tears,” she said.
BRIM is optimistic that BRM421 could be approved as a first-line treatment for dry eye disease, because it is innovative and utilizes a peptide-based regeneration medicine that advances the renewal of stem cells, Jang said.
While it takes about three months for those who use Novartis AG’s dry eye treatment Xiidra to experience relief, it takes about two weeks for those who use BRM421, the company said, adding that its drug has milder side effects, as it is based on a natural short-chain peptide.
Its drug should have an advantage over other treatments in the European market, the company said.
BRIM forecasts a compound annual growth rate of 10.6 percent in the number of patients with dry eye disease from 2018 to 2027, and predicts that the number of patients would grow to 11 billion in 2027, from 5.22 billion in 2020, because people use more electronic devices, wear contact lens more often and have more laser eye surgeries, it said.
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