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Shares in Akers Biosciences (LON:AKR, NSADAQ:AKER) rose sharply after it took a significant step closer to commercialising one of its potential blockbuster products.
It signed an agreement with Medline, which will distribute its point of care tests used to determine a patient’s allergy to the blood thinner Herparin.
Called PF4 and PIFA PLUSS PF4, the devices work by detecting tell-tale HIT-antibodies associated with an allergic reaction.
In the States around 12mln patients are exposed to Heparin annually, and 1%-5% of those are diagnosed with HIT.
Medline is expected to start marketing the tests to its large network of hospitals and surgery centres across the US immediately.
"Our goal is to become the hospital's test of choice for the millions of patients exposed to Heparin annually," said chairman Ray Akers.
He added that HIT-antibody testing has in the past been too slow to be factored into time-sensitive diagnostic and treatment decisions.
However, the Akers boss added: "We believe that our rapid assays, which can be completed at the point-of-care, have the capacity to drastically improve the rate at which HIT-antibodies are identified, improve patient outcomes and save large sums of money for hospitals prescribing expensive alternatives to Heparin unnecessarily while awaiting results from slow lab-based tests.”
Not only does this speed up the process, but it rapidly reduces the cost too.
The shares rose 45p to 315p following the news. However, City broker Daniel Stewart, which restarted coverage of Akers this morning, reckons the stock is worth 752p a share, which points to significant potential upside.
Analyst Vadim Alexandre cites the group’s January listing on the American NASDAQ tech exchange as a significant breakthrough for the business.
“With an additional $15mln of cash (gross) from the IPO, and supported by a reinvigorated marketing strategy, ABI is poised to accelerate the roll-out of its diagnostics product portfolio and pipeline,” was one of the major headlines from the 28-page note.