InhaleRX snags $38.5M in funding from VC biotech funder Clendon

InhaleRX (ASX:IRX) is set to go ahead with clinical trials of the company’s two key flagship drugs after Victorian VC firm Clendon handed IRX nearly $40M in cash.

Targeting “pain management and mental health,” the company is developing cannabis-based compounds for direct inhalation without the need to heat up material per usual vaporisers (or good old fashioned analogue methods.)

This, InhaleRX says, will allow it to offer fast-onset pain relief to large addressable markets. It isn’t clear how, exactly, their product will stand out in an environment already relatively saturated with cannabis-based products.

InhaleRX says it’s targeting breakthrough cancer pain with its cannabis-compound-containing inhalers – but that’s a condition for which cannabis prescriptions are already very common amongst those patients who desire to use the product in favour of stronger painkillers like oxycontin. That’s true for Australia, and overseas.

(The company is also seeking to use cannabis compounds to treat “Panic Disorder,” which this finance journalist – without saying too much – has questions about. Cannabis is known to induce anxiety in many who use it.)

In the ten years since attitudes towards medicinal cannabis have softened, a large range of products are currently available on local and US markets.

US markets are important, seeing as InhaleRX is seeking to win Investigational New Drug (IND) status from the FDA. It’s not clear, nor easy to find on the company’s website, precise information on what is different about InhaleRX’s cannabinoid compounds.

That said – the company has found a backer willing to throw $38.5M at the company, which does suggest a high level of conviction. (The illiquid company’s shares have jumped 104% on Friday on a volume of 2.75M shares per Morningstar data at 11.45am Sydney time.)

IRX last traded at 5cps.

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