Two highly successful life science companies that have emerged in the last decade in Australia are Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals (CUV: $15.64) and Nanosonics (NAN: $4.37). Whilst one is a pharmaceutical company and the other sells medical products (the Trophon disinfection instrument for ultrasound probes), there are several commonalities between the two businesses which make a comparison worthwhile.

By most measures, except for net profit, Polynovo (PNV: $1.28) has delivered an exceptionally strong year in FY2023. Revenue has increased by 59% to $66.5 million, the numbers of hospitals/customers has increased by 168 to 638, and its staff numbers have also surged by 66 to 218.

Having wrapped up the acquisition of Access Managed Services, Respiri (RSH: $0.03) has quickly moved to securing new initial patient monitoring contracts.

A robust 1H23 in recorded clinical trial sales amounting to US$27.3M was followed by a reduction of approximately 75% in 2H23, with sales totalling just US$6.7M. This marks a decline in overall clinical trial sales of 59% from the record reported in FY22 of US$82.5 million.

Imugene (IMU: $0.065) has announced it will acquire its fourth technology platform in cancer immunotherapy. The company is in-licensing an allogeneic CAR-T program, called Azer-Cel, from US company Precision Biosciences.

For FY2023, Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals (CUV: $18.15) achieved total revenues of $83 million, which was up 24% on the previous year. The net profit for the year increased by 47% to $30.6 million. The company finished the year with $157 million in cash.

Keynote address

Dr. Yuman Fong is a surgical oncologist at the City of Hope Medical Centre and was Keynote Speaker at this year's Bioshares Biotech Summit. As a clinician and scientist, while Dr. Fong's "day job" is surgery, he also works as an immuno-oncology researcher with his work partnered with Imugene (IMU: $0.089). Dr. Fong also has industry facing experience, having held regulatory roles in the approval process for immunotherapies and experience working with Genentech.

Pharmaxis (PXS: $0.05) has released interim results from its Phase II study with PXS-5505 in patients with myelofibrosis. Results from the first 10 patients who completed six months of treatment are now available.

Respiri (RSH: $0.034) CEO Marjan Mikel said that for 40 years the healthcare system has been seeking to reduce healthcare costs by moving patients out from expensive treatment settings into cheaper areas such as GP clinics or treatment in the home. However, the same narrative remains unchanged and largely unsuccessful, something Respiri is seeking to change.

Dimerix (DXB) CEO Nina Webster had encouraging news to share regarding the status of DXB's ACTION3 trial at the 17th annual Bioshares Biotech Summit. The pivotal Phase III trial is a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of the efficacy and safety of DMX-200 for the treatment of Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a rare form of kidney disease.