Tiziana Life Sciences (TLSA) has announced that it has begun a collaborative clinical study investigating nasally administered Foralumab either alone or in combination with orally administered dexamethasone in COVID-19 patients in Brazil.
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Scientific teams at the Harvard Medical School, Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Santos Hospital and at Tiziana are closely collaborating to facilitate initiation of this study in expedited time frames, the company says.
The study will start dosing patients on November 3, with clinical data expected before the end of 2020.
“Brazil is now experiencing almost 1000 deaths per day. Thus, our clinical study is both timely and potentially a life changer for the COVID-19 patients. The scientific concept, to activate nasal mucosal immunity by nasally administered Foralumab, is to fight against the virus in the respiratory tract and lungs,” stated Dr. Shailubhai CEO of Tiziana.
Since reduced or defective levels of T regulatory (Tregs) cells in the blood seem to be associated with the severity of COVID-19 and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), nasally administered Foralumab, by acting locally, could potentially suppress excessive cytokine storm and hyperinflammation in respiratory tract and lungs of COVID-19 patients, says Tiziana.
A patent application was filed in July 2020 to protect the potential use of nasally administered Foralumab for the treatment of COVID-19 either alone or in combination with other anti-viral drugs.
Year-to-date the stock has rallied an incredible 253%- and HC Wainwright analyst Ram Selvaraju is bullish on Tiziana’s outlook.
The analyst recently reiterated a buy rating on the stock with an $11 price target. This indicates shares can surge a further 188% from current levels.
“We note that our current valuation does not include any contribution from the use of Foralumab to treat COVID-19-infected patients. Thus, if the Brazilian trial proves successful, this could constitute meaningful upside to our estimates” writes Selvaraju, adding that Foralumab is also advancing in in Crohn’s Disease and progressive multiple sclerosis (MS).
“We also note that Tiziana completed a $57.3M equity financing that involved the issuance of roughly 11M ADSs at a price per ADS of $5.20. This extends the operational runway through 2022” he told investors. (See TLSA stock analysis on TipRanks).
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