Rxi Pharmaceuticals Jefferies Presentation Gives Insight For Future

Today Rxi Pharmaceuticals Presented at the Jefferies 2014 Global Healthcare Conference. The CEO gave his presentation and has offered investors some great insight into what are the next steps for the company. We feel that investors should take notice of this company, as it offers a chance for patients to get treatments for unmet medical needs. 

Rxi Pharmaceuticals uses RNAi , and RNA together as an antisense hybrid. The platform is referred to as sd-rxRNA , and is known as a self delivering mechanism because the oligonucleotide compound doesn't require a delivery vehicle like other RNAi compounds. The company is currently conducting two phase 2a studies for patients with hypertrophic scars and keloids respectively. The target compound is called RXI-109 and is going after CTGF -- Connective Tissue Growth Factor -- Today's Presentation offered new insights into Rxi because it deals with the future of the compounds themselves and future abilities from its sd-rxRNA platform. 

For starters, the CEO mentioned that an update for phase 2a hypertrophic scar data would be coming up in the coming months. The key interest from today's presentation is that the CEO, Geert Cauwenbergh, stated that the company has received some early photos from the phase 2 trial. The trial patients appear to have reduced hypertrophic scars. However, at this point in time we don't know if the RXI-109 compound caused the scar reduction or the placebo did (we note this because the trial is still double-blind) but we can likely assume that the RXI-109 was the reason for the dramatic reduction of patient scars and not the placebo drug. 

Secondly, the company was expected to start a third study for RXI-109 phase 2a in breast scar reconstruction surgery.  But plans have changed for the better as the company has now decided to launch the 3rd trial with not just breast hypertrophic scars but to include other parts of the body as well. That is a bullish indicator to expand the final trial, most likely indicating that early pictures show significant scar reduction. 

Finally Rxi has stated that they will be moving to a new lab in the fall. This is noteworthy because it could imply that they will be looking to create a topical form of RXI-109 since the compound is soluble and can be changed to a different form. The reason for this discovery was a complete breakthrough, because of an unexpected finding. Rxi was testing the eyes of monkey to determine optimal dose finding levels that could be tested in humans. The company noticed a remarkable gene knockdown of mRNA when they injected RXI-109 into the Retina.

That's not the amazing part though, the unexpected find was that the compound was strong enough to leak back and also knock down the mRNA of the cornea as well. With this data the company is extremely excited as expressed by the CEO during the Jefferies Presentation. This takes the company to the next level, because the ability to create a topical form for cornea scarring would be another big market. The company has a lot going for it and we think investors haven't quite yet taken notice yet. Investors should keep an eye on this name, because it may be trading at a much higher share price in the coming months. More on the Rxi company Presentation can be found here!