HemoGenyx Pharmaceuticals PLC (LON:HEMO) shares leapt 120% higher on Monday after it confirmed an earlier enigmatic tweet by saying it is "excited" by first data results from its lead product for the treatment of leukaemia.
All the tweet had said was “A serious breakthrough in the lab”, but it sent the AIM-listed firm's shares soaring first thing, prompting the group to release a regulatory news statement announcing that it has filed a provisional patent application relating to the development of a new type of humanised mice with a chimeric mouse-blood system that can be used to advance product development, as well as for other disease modelling and drug development.
READ: Hemogenyx happy with progress and recent collaborations
The company also noted that first data results have shown that its lead product, CDX bi-specific antibodies, are capable of attacking and eliminating the blood cancer Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) in vitro.
Using these new humanised mice, HemoGenyx said it is confident that it should be able to demonstrate that CDX bi-specific antibodies are effective in the treatment of AML.
Dr Vladislav Sandler, CEO and co-founder of the company, commented: "We are hugely excited by the first solid data that we've received testing the efficacy of CDX antibodies against Acute Myelogenous Leukemia.
"The results which show that they can attack and eliminate AML cells is a true breakthrough and a significant development in our process of developing CDX to become a universally available conditioning product for patients undergoing bone marrow transplants as a treatment for serious blood diseases."
He continued: “In addition, the new type of humanised mice opens the door to extending our work into other disease models and specific drug development which we expect to be of great interest to large biopharmaceutical companies and could form the basis of a number of significant future collaborations.”
In late afternoon trading, HemoGenyx's shares were up 123% at 4.75p. The company added that it regrets the "premature disclosure" of the tweet which it said "is not in accordance with the Company's policies on the release of information".